Global Challenges and Solutions in the early Warning, Monitoring and Toxicity Assessment of Biotoxins in the Food and Feed Chain

Abstract

There is a massive and urgent need to ensure safety and security of the food supply of the world´s growing population. However, global agriculture and food industries continue to be vulnerable to problems of contamination with biotoxins produced by plants, algae and particularly by fungi; with global warming and extreme weather events making the occurrence of these toxic metabolites even more unpredictable. In this paper we summarize the multidisciplinary, multi-sectoral complementary competencies needed to innovate in various scientific fields and approaches, so strongly needed to develop improved early warning,monitoring and toxicity assessment of biotoxins in the food and feed chain. These include big data approaches using satellite and drone images, portable monitoring devices and (combined) toxicity testing of(emerging) biotoxins using proteomics and transcriptomics.

Keywords

• food and feed safety
• prediction
• early warning
• phycotoxins
• mycotoxins
• plant toxins