A Growing Threat: Harmful Fungal Toxins Spreading in Wheat - SciTechDaily

Dr. Brown, who works in the Milner Centre for Evolution in the Department of Life Sciences at Bath, said: “Contaminated crops and Fusarium toxins are always a worry, as they pose a significant threat to our health, especially as we only partially understand their effects on our wellbeing.”

Preventing toxin contaminations is therefore important both to help maintain the stable price of wheat and to protect our food security, ensuring global stability.

By using data from across Europe (including the UK) from the past 10 years, the team built the most complete picture yet of the mycotoxin threat and how it is changing.

For the first time, the Bath team has put a price on the impact of Fusarium Head Blight mycotoxins by estimating the value lost due to wheat being too contaminated with DON for human consumption.

Study co-author Professor Dan Bebber from the University of Exeter Department of Biosciences added: “It’s vital that we have better systems to monitor how Fusarium Head Blight disease is changing in the field and to predict which environments are most at risk in the future.”

Reference: “Emerging health threat and cost of Fusarium mycotoxins in European wheat” by Louise E. Johns, Daniel P. Bebber, Sarah J. Gurr and Neil A.