China is a major cereal-producing country and almost one third of the annual cereal yield is maize. The maize plant and kernel are prone to infection by fungal attack and are most likely to be contaminated with mycotoxins under suitable temperature and humidity conditions, during both the growing and storage period. A number of investigations conducted in China have demonstrated that maize had been infected by fungi and contaminated with mycotoxins to varying degrees. Although most of the maize produced in China is used as feed and raw materials for the chemistry industry, a small amount of maize is consumed directly by humans and the hazards of mycotoxin to humans cannot be ignored. The state of mycotoxin contamination of maize in China is analyzed in this review. Due to unfavorable weather and poor storage conditions, the high incidences of mycotoxin contamination of maize are of great concern to the Chinese. It is imperative for the national and local governments to increase investments on building large-scale modern warehouses and instructing farmers to grow, harvest, and store maize safely. Meanwhile, due to accumulative toxic effects of mycotoxins, quality control should be enforced to guarantee that animal products are safe for human consumption.
Keywords: contamination; fungi; maize; mycotoxins.
© 2017 Institute of Food Technologists®.