Serbia Once Again Not to Lower Allowed Level of Aflatoxin in Milk – Deadline Extended by Another Year

From December 1 this year, the allowed level of aflatoxin in milk, according to the then valid rulebook, was supposed to be lowered from 0.25 to 0.05 micrograms per kilogram (not liter), which is also the maximum level in the EU. It seems like we were on “the path to Europe” for only eight days, because, from December 9, a new rulebook is in effect, which says that the threshold is not to be lowered after all until the end of November 2024.

Last year, the rulebook which, among other things, regulates the quantity of the allowed aflatoxin in milk was changed on time, at the end of November, just before the expiration of the deadline for switching to a stricter limit of 0.05 micrograms per kilogram of milk, so, instead of us being able to drink milk with less aflatoxin from December 2022, the deadline was moved to December 1, 2023.

This year, it seems, aflatoxin was forgotten about. The already changed rulebook was changed again only at the Government’s session on December 7, and the change came into effect on December 9.

According to the new Rulebook on the maximum concentrations of certain contaminants in food, the returning of the threshold for this cancerous matter to the EU maximum level is postponed for December 1, 2024.

The limit for the allowed level of aflatoxin in milk thereby remains raised to 0.25 micrograms per kilogram, which is as much as five times more that the maximum level proscribed for this mycotoxin in the EU, which Serbia itself had also implemented before the aflatoxin affair in 2013.

Ministarstvo poljoprivrede, šumarstva i vodoprivrede Republike Srbije

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aflatoxin

allowed level of aflatoxin