Aspergillus flavus is a well-known ubiquitous fungus able to contaminate both in pre- and postharvest period different feed and food commodities. During their growth, these fungi can synthesise aflatoxins, secondary metabolites highly hazardous for animal and human health. The requirement of products with low impact on the environment and on human health, able to control aflatoxin production, has increased. In this work the effect of the basidiomycete Trametes versicolor on the aflatoxin production by A. flavus both in vitro and in maize, was investigated. The goal was to propose an environmental loyal tool for a significant control of aflatoxin production, in order to obtain feedstuffs and feed with a high standard of quality and safety to enhance the wellbeing of dairy cows. The presence of T. versicolor, grown on sugar beet pulp, inhibited the production of aflatoxin B1 in maize by A. flavus. Furthermore, treatment of contaminated maize with culture filtrates of T. versicolor containing ligninolytic enzymes, showed a significant reduction of the content of aflatoxin B1.

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The overall aim of the project was to evaluate the use of routinely collected animal based measures (ABMs) for an evaluation of the overall animal welfare in dairy cow herds. ABMs being able to detect worst adverse effects in relation to animal welfare were identified based on the existing literature and expert opinion. The validity and robustness of these ABMs were evaluated and cow mortality, somatic cell count and lameness were selected for further study. A number of factors of variation were selected using expert opinion and used in a model to collate routinely collected data from Italy, Belgium and Denmark on selected ABMs. The routinely collected data was uploaded to the Data Collection Framework platform at EFSA and the data management in this process was evaluated. Five research datasets from Italy, Belgium, Denmark and France including information on ABMs as well as a measure of 'overall animal welfare' at herd level were analysed to evaluate the association between the ABMs (individually or in combination) and overall welfare. The measure of 'overall animal welfare' were not the same for all datasets. Except from the Italian data, the association between the ABMs and the different overall welfare measures were generally weak. Likewise, combining more than one ABM only improved the prediction of the overall welfare in the Italian dataset. Analyses of the other datasets could not confirm this finding. Finally, suggestions for future recordings of ABMs not routinely collected at the moment were given with a special focus on lameness. In conclusion, the relationship between selected ABMs and overall welfare at the herd level is complex and still not sufficiently studied. Therefore, a system using routinely collected ABMs to predict the overall welfare at herd level in dairy herds does not seem realistic based on the results from the present study. The present document has been produced and adopted by the bodies identified above as author(s The present document has been produced and adopted by the bodies identified above as author(s). In accordance with Article 36 of Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, this task has been carried out exclusively by the author(s) in the context of a grant agreement between the European Food Safety Authority and the author(s). The present document is published complying with the transparency principle to which the Authority is subject. It cannot be considered as an output adopted by the Authority. The European Food Safety Authority reserves its rights, view and position as regards the issues addressed and the conclusions reached in the present document, without prejudice to the rights of the authors. SUMMARYThe European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) aims to establish a practical and validated basis for data collection of animal based measures (ABMs) for farmed animal species and consequent quantitative risk assessment of the welfare of target populations. Through a series of six integrated objectives this project evaluated the possibility to use routinely collected ABMs to pre...

This research communication explores the value of routinely collected bulk tank milk quality data for estimating dairy cattle welfare at herd level. Selected bulk tank milk quality parameters (somatic cell count, total bacterial count, urea, protein and fat contents) recorded during the years 2014–2016 in 287 Italian dairy farms were compared with the animal welfare data of each farm. The welfare assessment data were extracted from the database of the Italian Reference Centre for Animal Welfare (CReNBA), which includes the outputs of the application of the CReNBA welfare assessment protocol for dairy cows, used at national level for on-farm controls. The statistical analysis was carried out using the correlation coefficient for Kendall's Tau ranks, in order to investigate the presence of a categoric relationship between the selected bulk tank milk quality parameters and the overall animal welfare score or the scores of the single areas A (farm management and staff training), B (housing) and C (animal-based measures). Somatic cell count, total bacterial count, urea and proteins demonstrated only a few statistically significant and very weak correlations with farm animal welfare data, while no significant correlations were obtained for milk fat content. Given the weak correlations found, the selected bulk tank milk parameters seems to be able to provide only limited information about the welfare level of the herd, thus it could be difficult to use them for drawing up a pre-screening model for identifying herds at risk of poor welfare.