*7.3.2 Mycotoxins*

Mycotoxins have a great range of the diversity, but aflatoxin (AF) is the abundant toxic compound found in various food and feeds. Aflatoxins are the dangerous toxic chemical compound produced by the *Aspergillus spp*. of fungi predominantly *A. flavus* and *A. parasiticus*. The aflatoxin problem is worldwide even in the temperate zones where the temperature, humidity, and harvesting conditions favor the growth of this fungus. More than 20 different AF derivatives like B1, B2, G1, G2, M1, etc. are identified as the dominating derivatives. AF after ingestion or after entry through skin disseminate within the body and have serious health hazards like carcinogenicity, mutagenicity, retarded growth, impaired liver functions, and allergic reactions [30]. The public health problems depend upon the severity of exposure, duration of exposure and type of AF exposure, and on the basis of this, aflatoxicosis is considered as acute and chronic.

Large number of fatalities occurs due to acute aflatoxicosis, but due to chronic exposure, most of the animals and humans got infected. Annually, 4.5 billion of human population is presented to the chronic exposure of AF [30] causing immune suppression, decreased food intake, susceptibility to the other infections like plasmodium and HIV, and reduced production.

Aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) is the major (about 95%) excreted AF metabolite in the milk and is related to severe health issues. Trace amounts of AFM2, AFL, AFM4, and AFQ1 are also detected in milk but have less public health importance [31]. Long-term feeding of AFB1-contaminated feed results in the appearance of AFM1 in the milk [32]. Studies suggest that the highly producing animals secrete more AFM1 in milk due to the more consumption of highly concentrated feed. Rate of carryover of AFM1 in the milk from the dairy cows ranges from 0.3 to 6.5% [33].

There is no standard procedure to control carryover of AFB1 from feed to the AFM1 in the milk. However, numerous strategies have been described [34–37] and they are listed as follows:


### **7.4 Considerations for competitive operational costs**

 The current day dairy operations like starting the enterprise, feeding the animals, maintaining a high level of hygiene and cleanliness at farm, and disposal of milk are performed at relatively high costs because of high costs of various dairy input (elite dairy animals, feed ingredients, preventive medication, electricity bills, etc.). These high costs directly control the product price and reduce the profit margins, and are variable among different systems of milk production. As per estimates of collected data from farmers maintaining herds in different production systems, the farm-gate price for 1 kg milk production of cows ranges from 42 (rural subsistence and rural market oriented) to 52 PKR (all other cow milk production systems; the prices are usually discounted for dairy organizations as a reward of the dairy inputs provided by them to the farmers) and that of buffaloes ranges from 55 to 65 PKR. These prices are relatively higher than those incurred in the more developed countries of the world. This situation prevents the investors to invest in the dairy business and causes the import of milk and milk products to fulfill country's requirements of milk. It is, therefore, suggested that farmers should be encouraged to produce milk at relatively low prices to make dairy sector of Pakistan to be more competitive with rest of the world. It is further suggested that a system for price determination of per kg milk production based on differences arising from species and system of milk production to propagate buffalo dairy farming and reduce malpractices in milk marketing may be introduced.

### **7.5 Research**

### *7.5.1 To save environment and water resources*

 Pakistan has been included among the countries to face severe shortage of clean and hygiene water in the near future. The underground water table is getting deeper, and the available surface water is facing a merciless run-off. As discussed earlier, milk production and processing activities require large quantities of clean and hygienic water. No resources are committed to research on and discussion of the environmental effects of the dairy sector either by private or public sector, although there has been some recent interest in the development of treatment plants of wastewater and biogas by the private dairy organizations [19]. Therefore, sincere efforts are required with focused strategies to: (1) accurately estimate the current emissions of greenhouse gases and waste water from the agricultural sector, especially livestock and (2) mitigate these emissions through available resources.

*Current Standing and Future Challenges of Dairying in Pakistan: A Status Update DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.83494* 
