MYCOKEY Kick-off Meeting

26-29 April 2016. Martina Franca, Italy. The MycoKey project started on 1st April 2016 and the official Kick-off meeting was held for the project partners.

This event is of great significance to a good start of the project and to allow us to better organize the work plan, to prevent any problems and to use fully the potential and opportunities that this project will offer. The meeting was conducted in a very informal way, open to all comments and concerns.

• MycoKey presentation, Antonio F. Logrieco, CNR ISPA, MycoKey Coordinator
• European policy on mycotoxins in feed and food: Regulatory challenges and the important role of research, Frans Verstraete, European Commission, Directorate General for Health and Consumers
• H2020 program: insights to improve research and innovation in funded projects, Alessio Bacchielli,European Commission, REA - Research Executive Agency, FP7 SME Actions
• The APHLIS+ international project on food safety, Felix Rembold, European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Environment and Sustainability - Monitoring Agricultural Resources Unit
• Future challenges on mycotoxin management, Monica Olsen, Senior Risk Benefit Assessor, Livsmedelsverket - National Food Agency of Sweden
• Ecological functions of mycotoxin detoxification, Peter Karlovsky, Universityof Goettingen
• The SYMPHONY project: microsystems for mycotoxin detection, Andrea Adami, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, CMM-Center for Materials and Microsystems

Background:

MycoKey is a new project funded by European Commission under Horizon 2020 programme, Societal challenge 2 "Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research and the bioeconomy challenge" - topic “ Biological contamination of crops and the food chain”.

• It aims to deliver in 2019 the first integrated ICT based solutions to address mycotoxin contamination along the food and feed chain, by using an holistic and sustainable approach.
• In the past, several actions have been developed to counteract mycotoxins effects and risks in the single stages of the value chain, often difficult to be applied by common farmers and SMEs. 
• MycoKey will integrate innovative key actions into an user friendly and cheap application, able to provide real-time information and suggestions for mycotoxin management to several stakeholders. Studies will be carried out to investigate new methods to prevent the contamination in the field, during processing and storage. New sustainable technologies will be developed (i.e. drones) to monitor toxigenic fungi, analyze and prevent the mycotoxin contamination and risk, finally to apply remediation tools.
• 32 partnersfrom Europe, China, Nigeria, Argentina, including research institutions, SMEs, industries and associations will work together for 4 years, focusing on aflatoxins, deoxynivalenol, zearalenone, ochratoxin A, fumonisins. They will also operate together to strenghten the global knowledge on mycotoxins, feed an effective cooperation with China, and to create interaction with other projects and initiatives, giving recommendations to regulators.
• The project (total value 6,4M euro) is Coordinated by CNR ISPA, Italy and started on April 1, 2016.