Mycotoxins Impact Prediction in Food Due to Climate Change Using Big-Data Analysis in Korea

Introduction : The growth of mycotoxigenic fungi and mycotoxin production level is predicted to be affected greatly due to average temperature  increase caused by global warming and massive weather anomaly. Since high temperature and high humidity by climate change accelerates growth of mycotoxigenic fungi in food and raises risks of mycotoxins, the accompanying countermeasures of food safety are required.This study was conducted to predict the types of mycotoxins with potential risk in the future and the vulnerable regions to mycotoxins by collecting and executing spatial-temporal analysis of big-data on the climate change, monitoring data on mycotoxin contamination level in food, and cultivation distribution of food in Korea.

Purpose : To analyze climate vulnerabilty of mycotoxins in food, to deduct high priority risk indicator, and to develop scientific basis for the decision making on regional priority of national monitoring sampling.

Methods : The impacts of each mycotoxins were predicted in this study by analyzing the change of the occurrence of days on optimum climatic conditions for mycotoxin production using Korea weather history data and future climate change scenarios (RCP scenarios). The regions vulnerable to mycotoxins in Korea were selected in this study by generating big-data via connecting national monitoring data and agricultural cultivation data. As a big-data analysis method, Time Series Analysis and SNA(Social Network Analysis) were particularly used.

Results : The results obtained with analysis of the change on occurrence of days for each 13 kinds of mycotoxins activity based on climate change in Korea suggested Ochratoxin A has increased most apparently since 1999, while Aflatoxin has not shown any change, and the other hazards have increased overall and showed radical increase since 2010. Also, Gyeongsangbuk-do, Gangwon-do and other east part of Korea are indicated as vulnerable regions by the results of analyzing risk rate calculated from the number of days on optimum climatic conditions for mycotoxin, detection rate of mycotoxin, and cultivation measurement of mycotoxin detected food. Precise forecast is requested on detail analysis of effect of food for further studies.

Significance : The effects of mycotoxins in food in medium and longer term according to climate change were forecast in this study, and Ochratoxin A in addition to the existing monitored mycotoxins such as Deoxynivalenol, Fumonisin and Zearalenon is required to be monitored in the level of food production. Also, sampling plan applied weighting on regions vulnerable to mycotoxins is suggested to be established to execute effective risk management within limited budget.