Economic importance of mycotoxins — Recent incidence

Mycotoxins can have an impact on economics by causing losses in farm animals or giving rise to difficulties in their management, or by rendering a commodity unacceptable in national or international trade, because it does not conform with national criteria laid down for maximum tolerated levels of certain mycotoxins. The formation of mycotoxins in human food or animal feeds can occur as a result of postharvest sp materials badly stored, or preharvest as a result of invasion of a crop plant by a mycotoxigenic mould which may have a pathogenic or symbiotic relationship with the plant. There is at least one situation (facial eczema of sheep) in which a mycotoxin (sporidesmin) is produced in the field but on dead plant litter rather than in the living plant.

Given sufficient economic resources there should be no problem in controlling the postharvest formation of mycotoxins in storage, but in tropical developing countries these resources may not be available and problems do still occur. The formation of mycotoxins in the field may be far more difficult to control and may require quite radical changes in agricultural practice.