Occurrence of Fusarium mycotoxin fumonisin B1 and B2 in animal feeds in Korea.

The objective of this study was to monitor the occurrence and levels of fumonisin B1 (FB1) and fumonisin B2 (FB2) in animal feeds distributed in South Korea in 2011. The contamination levels of FB1 and FB2 were investigated in 150 samples of compound feeds and in 40 samples of feed ingredients. The contamination rate of feed ingredients with FB1 and FB2 was 50 and 40%, respectively. FB2 was only found in samples contaminated with FB1. Of the compound feeds, 85% were contaminated by FB1 and 47% were contaminated by FB2. The highest contamination rate of FBs was observed in compound feeds for cattle (FB1: 100%; FB2: 80%), followed by poultry feed (FB1: 78%; FB2: 40%) and swine feed (FB1: 76%; FB2: 22%). The highest contamination level (14,600 ng/g) for FB1 were found in poultry broiler feed (early feeding period) samples, which had 82% contamination rate (9/11), and the highest level of FB2 (2,280 ng/g) was found in feed for fatting calves,which had a contamination rate of 100%.