German government vows action after dioxin scare

About 3,000 German farms have been given the green light to re-open as the government vowed yesterday to toughen up on a dioxin poisoning scare that sparked import bans on some of its farm products.

Meanwhile Danish authorities said toxic animal feed from Germany had been purchased by a Danish firm and could be in Denmark, a food official said.

Out of the 4,700 German farms that were closed, “there are now only 1,470 farms barred from deliveries out of the about 4,400” in the region, Lower Saxony’s agriculture ministry said in a statement.

Data has been collected in cooperation with agricultural officials to allow for a “solid analysis” and “identify farms to be sure that products carry no risk for consumers”, said the statement.

Berlin promised to take strict action ahead of talks aimed at preventing a repeat.

“This is a big blow for our farmers. They have totally innocently been dragged into this situation by the sick machinations of a few people,” Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. “The judiciary has to clamp down hard.”

Germany’s farmers’ association plans to seek financial aid for farmers who were forced to suspend deliveries due to the scandal, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported.

Police last week raided a north German firm suspected of knowingly supplying up to 3,000 tonnes of fatty acids meant for industrial use with high levels of potentially carcinogenic dioxins to some 25 animal feed makers.

Tests on samples from the company, Harles und Jentzsch, showed nine samples out of 20 had dioxin levels higher, or much higher, than permitted, with one batch 78 times the legal limit.

Its 25 customer companies then reportedly delivered up to 150,000 tonnes of contaminated feed to thousands of farms – mostly those producing eggs and rearing poultry and pigs – across large parts of Germany.