Biomin releases report on mycotoxins in animal feed

Biomin released the results of its Biomin Mycotoxin Survey Program 2011, a comprehensive report on studies conducted on the distribution of mycotoxins according to region of origin and common type. 
More than 4,300 samples were collected from various countries over a 12-month period from January-December 2011, and 13,854 analyses of mycotoxins were performed to investigate the occurrence of aflatoxins, zearalenone, deoxynivalenol, fumonisins and/or ochratoxin A in different regions of the world and feed materials. 
More than 70 percent of the samples were analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography, followed by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay and the thin-layer chromatography method. Samples were first classified according to region of origin (see figure), mainly by the Asia-Pacific (37 percent); Europe, Africa and the Middle East (35 percent); the Americas (27 percent). Second, samples were classified by commodity types, ranging from raw materials, like corn (33 percent), wheat (9 percent), barley (7 percent) and soybean (5 percent), to finished feed (25 percent), silage (8 percent) and other feed ingredients (13 percent). 
The results show that average contamination levels were slightly lower in 2011 compared with 2010, though the percentage of mycotoxin distribution found at the maximum levels remains similar to that of 2010 for zearalenone, deoxynivalenol and fumonisins. The report also found that with aflatoxins,  zearalenone, deoxynivalenol, fumonisins and/or  ochratoxin A affected 27 percent, 40 percent, 59 percent, 51 percent and 27 percent of the 4,327 samples collected worldwide, respectively. 

In addition, the report offers a regional breakdown for common mycotoxin occurrences, types of commodities associated with the different mycotoxins, and the corresponding maximum and average levels of contamination per region for each toxin. The full report is available on Biomin's website.