A systematic review of global occurrence of emerging mycotoxins in crops and animal feeds and their toxicity in livestock

Abstract

Mycotoxins are the most frequently occurring natural contaminant in food and feed. Their occurrence in crops and animal feed represents an enormous challenge particularly for livestock farmers in terms of increased production costs reduced animal performance and profitability. This study investigates the scale of emerging mycotoxins contamination of crops and animal feeds globally and evaluates their impacts on the health and performance of livestock especially when they co-occur alongside regulated mycotoxins. Emerging mycotoxins including nivalenol enniatins beauvericin diacetoxyscirpenol fusaric acid patulin moniliformin and sterigmatocystin were found to be the most prevalent contaminants of cereals and other feed commodities worldwide. The pooled mean levels for beauvericin nivalenol enniatins moniliformin sterigmatocystin diacetoxyscirpenol fusaric acid and patulin were 386 421 7 854 204 136 126 370 and 138 ?g/kg respectively. In terms of toxicity co-occurrence of emerging mycotoxins with each other and also with regulated mycotoxins profoundly impacts livestock performance even at low levels. Therefore there is a need for cumulative risk assessments to evaluate the health risks associated with simultaneous exposure to emerging and regulated mycotoxins and also to develop effective mitigation strategies. ? 2024 The Authors