Today, Dr. Steffen Noleppa, Managing Director of HFFA Research, presented his new study on Mycotoxins in corn: economic consequences for agricultural production and value creation in Germany. The study sheds light on an emerging problem that has received little public attention so far: In recent years, corn yields have been increasingly contaminated with mycotoxins.

Corn has long become a key component of Germany’s major agricultural and food value chains. The crop currently accounts for 21% of Germany’s cultivated area and provides for the livelihood of a large group of farmers and agricultural producers. Mycotoxins are produced by plant infecting fungi and are a danger to human and animal health, even in low concentrations. Feed contaminated with mycotoxins is known to have a negative effect on milk output, and to reduce weight gains in pig production, among other far more devastating effects.

In order to describe the magnitude of the problem, the new study calculates and discusses the economic consequences of continuously high mycotoxin concentrations for agriculture and the subsequent value chain.

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