OT: An Agricultural Scientist’s Food Supply Worries Part 2: Vomitoxin

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An Agricultural Scientist's Food Supply Worries Part 2: Vomitoxin

Written by Steve Savage

Published on September 20th, 2009Posted in Food & Drink, Technology

Sustainablog - USA

http://sustainablog.org/2009/09/20/an-agricultural-scientists-food-supply-worrie\

s-part-2-vomitoxin/

I need to be very careful in what I say about this topic because it would be

easy to scare people beyond what is rational. I could also also easily make

enemies in the Wheat industry which is about the last thing I'd like to do. I'm

going to try to hit the right balance, but it is risky.

Mycotoxins

Most people don't know that Mycotoxins are a very real issue in our food supply.

These are nasty, natural chemicals that are produced by certain fungi that

infect crops. This is not something new. In Medieval times there was a

wide-spread neurological disorder called " Ergotism. " It was caused by mycotoxins

in the rye crop produced by a disease called " ergot. " The poor people who lived

off of rye, rather than wheat, were disproportionately effected.

Mycotoxins are still an issue today. 2009 has been a particularly bad year for

a toxin called " vomitoxin " in wheat, barley and pasta wheat. Its not a secret,

but unless you read the farm press or trade news, you would never know.

Sometime do a Google News search for " vomitoxin. " If there is rain when these

grains are flowering, they can become infected with a fungus called Fusarium

graminierum. The disease starts by reducing the farmer's yields, but it can

also produce a toxin in the remaining grain called deoxynivalenol (more

commonly called DON toxin). The trade term, " vomitoxin, " comes from the

physical response that animals have if they are fed too much of this

contaminated grain (which is obviously not pretty).

» See also: What Does an Agricultural Scientist Worry About in the Food Supply

(Part 1)

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How is This Toxin Managed Today?

So what happens to grain that is contaminated? Much of it is detected and

segregated-out at the grain elevator stage. The unfortunate farmer takes an

additional economic hit because the grain is " docked " (he/she gets a much lower

price for it). The contaminated grain is then directed into animal feed

channels at low levels or into other non-food uses (in some places, ethanol).

Some lower-level grain contamination makes it into the food supply, but through

extensive testing, the levels are kept below guidelines set by the FDA or by

agencies in countries that import our grain. When wheat is milled to make

flour, the toxin from any infected kernels is well diluted. I'm confident that

vomitoxin in our food supply is at far lower levels than before all these

safeguards were in place. About the only way you can get enough vomitoxin to

get sick is if by chance you eat an infected whole " wheat berry " in something

like an artisan bread. Whole-berry breads are tasty and healthy in other ways,

but they are one of the few foods that I, as an agricultural scientist,

intentionally avoid.

How Worrisome is This?

Back to the " Worry " thing. How dangerous is low-level bio-toxin contamination

like this in the food supply. That is probably an unanswerable question. There

is no one with the " deep pockets " who has had to pay for chronic toxicity

studies.

First some perspective. I'm including a picture of the supply of Thai peppers I

grew in my garden this year. These little guys are loaded with a delicious but

fairly toxic chemical called capsaicin. But capsaicin is exactly why I grow them

for use in cooking. Your morning coffee contains lots of the moderately toxic

chemical, caffeine, but the caffeine is probably why you drink it. Both of

these chemicals are substantially more toxic than most modern pesticides. The

good thing is that our bodies are pretty well designed for a world of natural

toxins. The cells that line our intestines only live for three days as a

defense against these insults. I'm trying to strike a balance here. Toxins

are not just OK, but in the case of vomitoxin I think that the industry is doing

a pretty decent job. There are toxins I worry about much more than vomitoxin in

terms of long-term effects. I'll be talking about those in my next post.

Still, it isn't a desirable situation that this disease and toxin continue to

cause the problems they do. It is on my " worry list " because between the

grower's losses and all the expense of segregation and testing, this disease is

costing us millions of dollars - possibly billions this year. It would also be

a really good thing to have more wheat grown as part of a more diverse rotation

with corn and soybeans, but the risk of this disease for farmers has helped to

pretty much push wheat out of the corn belt. It has proven very difficult to

breed for resistance to this particular disease and it is difficult to control

with fungicides.

The Solution that Didn't Happen and Why

A few years ago it looked like there might be a solution on the way. The

Swiss-based ag technology company, Syngenta, announced that it was working on a

GMO trait for wheat which greatly reduced the production of vomitoxin. It might

not be the total solution, but it would be a great start. That program was

derailed around 2003 when European and Japanese importers threatened to boycott

all North American wheat if any GMO was planted. The wheat industry reluctantly

bowed to this pressure and asked the technology companies to suspend their

efforts to commercialize GMO wheat even though there was no scientific or

regulatory reason to do so. The wheat growers are re-thinking that decision

today.

European wheat and barley has even more issues with this particular toxin than

that in North America. In many years we have very little vomitoxin while

Europe's wetter climate makes is nearly a constant problem. So here is how it

seems to work for people that are under the sway of " the precautionary

principle. "

The presence of a real live toxin that we know about is more acceptable than the

risks that they can imagine but which never seem to have materialized in the

growing of other GMO crops over long periods of time and billions of acres.

It would be one thing if Europe and Japan applied this logic only to their own

food supply, but they have effectively imposed their view on the whole world.

Because they can wield market leverage as major importers, farmers continue to

suffer economic losses and we all pay more for slightly contaminated grain.

Does that seem fair?

In a table buried on page 48 of a Greenpeace Canada document posted on the web a

few years ago to oppose wheat biotech (including this vomitoxin reducing

technology), there was an acknowledgment that this disease is a " huge economic

burden for growers " and that the associated toxin " can cause health problems in

humans. " Interestingly, this was in a table in a column labeled " Challenges for

campaigning. " Well, their " campaigning " has succeeded in keeping this toxin in

the food supply for now.

You are welcome to comment on this site or to send an email to

feedback.sdsavage@... (I promise I won't give the address to anyone or to

spam you).

Thai pepper image from Steve Savage. Image of wheat infected by Fusarium by

Weller.