Crop Assurance can help cereal sector manage mycotoxin risk
The NFU has been working with the UK cereal sector to manage field borne mycotoxins and ensure that legal levels set by the EU are applied correctly at the farm gate. It says a major element in making this work is crop assurance, which contains a risk assessment for wheat to help farmers identify appropriate markets for their crop and communicate this to processors.
However, testing individual lorry loads of wheat, at or before intake, remains an issue for British farmers with cost, high risk of error, disruption and waste all contributing to increasing the costs of producing milling wheat. In the UK farmers have been obliged to provide test results in addition to assessing risk, and the cost of this testing is estimated at over two million pounds (or over 40 pence/tonne) before grain leaves the farm.
NFU combinable crops board chairman Ian Backhouse addressed an international fusarium mycotoxin conference organised by DG SANCO (the EU Commission Directorate responsible for health and consumer protection), in Brussels on Monday.
Speaking after the conference Mr Backhouse said: "We can control and reduce but not completely eradicate the currently regulated fusarium mycotoxins in crops.
"Legislators are considering bringing in further controls, but we are encouraging them to understand the consequences of setting legal limits which act to impede the supply chain. Consideration of how this kind of legislation will be used must be thoroughly thought through.
"Farmers and growers are caught in the tension created between regulatory demands for environmental protection on one hand and for food safety on the other. They are being asked to use minimum cultivations for soil protection while at the same time receiving advice from food safety authorities to use ploughing to reduce DON mycotoxin risk.
"With this in mind farmers and growers must be allowed to use technology to control fusarium and reduce the risk of mycotoxins forming. Availability of triazole fungicide products will be critical in higher disease pressure years to limit the development of fusarium disease and subsequent mycotoxin formation in field. The extreme weather in 2008 overcame some best practice. If this is an indicator of the impact of climate change, and something we can expect to see more of in the future, we will require new tools to limit the presence of mycotoxins. New plant breeding and crop protection products must all be part of the solution and require long-term investment.
"Finally, existing regulation in this area is strong. We need to see this better communicated by the Commission through to retailers and consumers. This should help to reduce the need for unnecessary and cumulative, additional standards which come as a result of commercial pressure in the supply chain."
