1.1 Introduction
Aflatoxins are poisonous substances produced by certain kinds of fungi (moulds) that are found naturally all over the world; they can contaminate food crops and pose a serious health threat to humans and livestock (WHO, 2018). Aflatoxins can be found worldwide in a variety of food and feed commodities especially cereals; the contamination with aflatoxin-producing fungi and the production of the toxin in the products can occur in the field, during storage, transportation at almost all stages of the production chain. In finished animal feed, the contamination of an ingredient could cause the contamination of an entire feed batch (Gallo et al., 2015).
Furthermore, the introduction of a feedstuff contaminated with aflatoxin-producing fungi could lead to the spoilage of other feed shipments and serves as a fungi source in the feed industry environment difficult to eliminate. This deterioration effect has a significant repercussion in association with the global trade and the international exchange of animal feed and feed ingredients (Kovalsky et al., 2016). Co-occurrence of different mycotoxins in finished feed could have profound negative effects on animal and human health, due to the synergistic or additive effect among toxins (Kovalsky et al., 2016). The global production of animal feed reached 964 million tons in 2014 (FEFAC, 2015). Cereal grains, primarily corn, are widely used as energy source in animal feed for different species. These raw materials represent 50–80% of the animal diet in America and Europe. USA and Brazil are the major corn exporter countries, and Japan and Mexico are the largest importer countries (ITC, 2017). For example, most of the ingredients used in Malaysia for the production of animal feeds such as cereal grains, soybean meal, corn gluten meal, and soybean meal are imported from Thailand, China, India, Argentina, USA, Australia, and Canada. Mycotoxin contamination of feed caused by poor storage conditions during production and transportation are frequent (Afsah-Hejri et al., 2013). In Costa Rica, the animal feed produced is based on corn products and only during 2015 over 764 254 tons of corn products were imported (PROCOMER, 2017).
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
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