Legislative Aspects Regarding the Control of Mycotoxins

The branch of public health has always faced a rather big problem - the presence of mycotoxins. The most feared are the carcinogenic ones, which should be excluded from the food sector. Due to the fact that the population has no way to be totally safe from the effect of mycotoxins, certain levels of tolerance have been established by the official bodies, thus, at the global level, regulations have been implemented regarding the maximum allowed limits of mycotoxins, having consumer protection centre. The epidemiological risk due to the contamination of feed, food with compounds of a mycotoxin nature has involved international bodies such as: the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Organization (UNO) through the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) . In order to ensure a high level of protection of human health, the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) was created within the European Community. These regulations were the basis for the development of national and international programs, with the aim of preventing the multiplication of fungi in plant substrates that end up in human and animal food, as well as the control of their contamination with mycotoxins

Physico-Chemical and Mycological Evaluation of Fodder from a Cattle Farm

The purpose of the research was to carry out some analyses in order to establish the physico-chemical composition and the fungal load of the plant substrates used for raising animals, in a cattle farm in the Moldova area in 2022. There were five categories of samples (75 determinations in total) - alfalfa hay, corn silage, mixed feed ration, concentrates, corn grains and were analysed randomly from the farm. The results of the physico-chemical composition of the feed by the FT-NIRS technique were in accordance with the regulations in force and no significant differences were found between the samples, it is certain that the humidity had a higher percentage, hence the fact that there were developed species of fungi speaking from the point of view of mycotic contamination. The highest fungal load was recorded in corn grains and corn silage, and the lowest value was recorded in alfalfa hay. The number of colony-forming units per gram of sample was determined by the serial dilution technique in a double agar layer. The results obtained during the analysed period highlighted the presence of the genus Penicillium to the greatest extent (28%), and the lowest percentage was recorded for the genus Cladosporium (5.3%)