description
- Climate change amplifies food safety risks by fostering the proliferation of pathogens and contaminants in the food supply chain, and introducing unfamiliar or novel hazards. Among the food safety threats, because of their ubiquity, MYMATCH will consider the effects of climate change on a selection of mycotoxins (related to fungi belonging to Aspergillus, Fusarium, and Alternaria) occurring in maize, wheat, tomato, and nuts. Thanks to a strong and multi-actor partnership, MYMATCH will contribute to i) the prediction and mitigation of risk related to fungi and mycotoxin occurrence, ii) the assessment of mycotoxins exposure in humans (concerning different diets) and animals, and iii) the implementation of proper risk management measures. This will be achieved with data collection taking place at different levels, from literature considering events that happened in the past, under controlled environments and open fields, enabling the generation of the missing datasets needed to fulfil the project aims. This will support the development and implementation of fungi and mycotoxin predictive models founded on accurate climate change scenarios to anticipate the changes in mycotoxin occurrence in European food systems. MYMATCH AI mycotoxin management Platform will be the final output, the support for all food system actors with tailored predictions, recommendations, and mitigation approaches. By using this platform, the agri-food researchers, farmers, industry stakeholders, and policymakers, involved in the project through the MYMACTH’s Multi-Actor Framework, will be assisted in taking threat-mitigation initiatives and in decision-making, both in the short- and strategic long-term planning. MYMATCH tools and methods will be generated in a way that is easily extendable to other contaminant issues and co-created and developed with a strong interaction with potential users like EFSA.