Safe food and feed through an integrated toolbox for mycotoxin management: the MyToolBox approach

Abstract

There is a pressing need to mobilise the wealth of knowledge from the international mycotoxin research conducted over the past 25-30 years, and to perform cutting-edge research where knowledge gaps still exist. This knowledge needs to be integrated into affordable and practical tools for farmers and food processors along the chain in order to reduce the risk of mycotoxin contamination of crops, feed and food. This is the mission of MyToolBox -a four-year project which has received funding from the European Commission. It mobilises a multi-actor partnership (academia, farmers, technology small and medium sized enterprises, food industry and policy stakeholders) to develop novel interventions aimed at achieving a significant reduction in crop losses due to mycotoxin contamination. Besides a field-to-fork approach, MyToolBox also considers safe use options of contaminated batches, such as the efficient production of biofuels. Compared to previous efforts of mycotoxin reduction strategies, the distinguishing feature of MyToolBox is to provide the recommended measures to the end users along the food and feed chain in a web-based MyToolBox platform (e-toolbox). The project focuses on small grain cereals, maize, peanuts and dried figs, applicable to agricultural conditions in the EU and China. Crop losses using existing practices are being compared with crop losses after novel pre-harvest interventions including investigation of genetic resistance to fungal infection, cultural control (e.g. minimum tillage or crop debris treatment), the use of novel biopesticides suitable for organic farming, competitive biocontrol treatment and development of novel modelling approaches to predict mycotoxin contamination. Research into post-harvest measures includes real-time monitoring during storage, innovative sorting of crops using vision-technology, novel milling technology and studying the effects of baking on mycotoxins at an industrial scale.

Adverse Effects, Transformation and Channeling of Aflatoxins Into Food Raw Materials in Livestock

“…Future research should aim at a deeper understanding of the high-complexity and multi-parameter processes influencing the aflatoxin contents of feeds and foods. Novel multilateral approaches are definitely needed to control mycotoxins and their disadvantageous agricultural, health care and economic impacts more effectively (Krska et al, 2016;Stadler et al, 2018).…”

Electrochemical Immunosensor for the Detection of Aflatoxin B1 in Palm Kernel Cake and Feed Samples

“…Mycotoxin contamination of feeds can occur in the field, during harvesting, drying, transportation and even storage. Mycotoxin production is largely influenced by the environmental conditions including temperature, humidity [ 5 ] and agronomic practices [ 6 ]. This has culminated into the need for the detection of mycotoxins in PKC.…”

Advanced LC–MS-based methods to study the co-occurrence and metabolization of multiple mycotoxins in cereals and cereal-based food

“…According to the European Commission [4], it has been estimated that 5-10% of global production is lost annually because of mycotoxin contamination. However, in a recent survey on mycotoxin contamination, more than 80% of samples were contaminated with at least one mycotoxin and 45% contained more than one secondary metabolite of fungi [5]. Currently, there are approximately 100,000 described fungal species.…”