natural occurrence of t-2 toxin in domestic and imported rice

background: rice is one of the crops, which are prone to be contaminated with toxigenic fungi and their mycotoxins. this study aimed to investigate the natural occurrence of t-2 toxin in domestic and imported rice in iran. methods: in a cross-sectional descriptive study in winter 2007, 140 samples of imported rice (125 samples of thai and 25 sam­ples of pakistani rice) and 60 samples of iranian rice were collected from warehouses of canteens of governmental of­fices in tehran. after grinding and methanol extraction of the rice samples, the amount of t-2 toxin was measured using a sand­wich elisa. instata statistical software was used for data analysis. results: all samples of rice were more or less contaminated with t-2 toxin but the amount did not exceed the permissible limit. mean contamination of domestic and imported rice was 11.2±2.3 and 13±2.7 µg/kg, respectively. regarding imported rice, mean of contamination was 14.5±4.6 µg/kg for the pakistani rice and 12.6±2.2 µg/kg for the thai rice.  there was no signifi­cant difference between domestic and imported rice, nor did we find a meaningful difference among iranian, paki­stani and thai rice regarding the amount of contamination ( p = 0.2). conclusion:  although the amount of contamination is less than the safe limit, the extent of natural occurrence of t-2 toxin in rice in iran indicates that contamination occurs somewhere in the production process. this, in turn, necessitates screening of rice for contamination with mycotoxins from farm to table.