The project Early warning systems in agro supply chains aims to develop a method to set up early warning systems. Based on such a system, an early indication can be given for the occurrence of a particular (known) hazard in the supply chain. The ultimate objective, hereby, is to reduce animal and human exposure to microbiological and/or chemical food safety hazards.
In the project, an early warning system is developed for one, being Fusarium spp. and their mycotoxins in the international wheat supply chain. In this system, indicators are chosen that affect both the production of Fusarium spp as well as their production of mycotoxins.
In the project, a model has been developed to predict the occurrence of Fusarium spp as well as mycotoxins in wheat at harvest, based on factors such as wheather, cultivar, tillage. Currently, a supply chain model is developed that estimates animal and human exposure by consumption of wheat based products, based on the predicted DON level at harvest. Both the predictive model and the supply chain model are part of the early warning system.
Within the KP6 EU project SAFEFOODS, three models have been developed to estimate (semi-quantitatively) the contamination of wheat, maize and nuts with (known) re-emerging mycotoxins. Hereby, the so-called holistic approach is followed to select the most important indicators in these models. |
