Climate Change and the Impact on Aflatoxin Contamination in Foods: Where Are We and What Should be Expected?

Climate change (CC) is nowadays unquestionable and governmental institutions, scientific community, and citizens are becoming more and more aware about this reality. Mycotoxins are one of the most important food safety hazards due to its high toxicity and associated health effects. Among mycotoxins, aflatoxins are those calling for a special attention due to its carcinogenic effects, high number of associated notifications in food and feed products, and mainly the possibility to become a future food safety issue due to CC, especially in the Mediterranean region. Temperature raise and extreme changes in rain fall/drought episodes could be responsible for Aspergillus flavus growth and aflatoxin contamination in crops, which could impact their productivity and affect food availability in the future, as well as food safety. Predictive modelling could establish important contributions to anticipate the impact of future CC scenarios on aflatoxin contamination, and consequently on health. This chapter gives an overview on the effects of CC on mycotoxin occurrence in foods, focused on aflatoxins, its associated health consequences and available legislation, fungal growth conditions and aflatoxin production, and associated episodes in Europe. Additionally, this presents a review on the models used to predict consequences of CC in aflatoxins production and direct losses. Gathering all this information, this chapter will contribute to increase awareness about the impact of CC on mycotoxin contamination in foods, providing a particular focus on the aflatoxin consequences.