The North's Minister for Agriculture has announced measures to combat foot-and-mouth disease, following confirmation that a consignment of pigs from the North recently arrived at an Essex abattoir that has detected the disease.
Several farms were sealed off yesterday as vets from the North's Department of Agriculture began searches for signs of the disease.
Ms Brid Rodgers said she had agreed to an EU proposal to impose temporary controls on intra-community and third country trade in live animals, meat, milk and other products from Britain and the North until at least early March.
"This is normal precautionary practice for disease control purposes in outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease, and we would expect other member-states to take the same steps to protect our industry if similar circumstances arose elsewhere."
She said the importation of pigs, sheep, goats, cattle and semen into the North from Britain would cease, as would the importation of the products of such animals.
"In the meantime, I would urge farmers and all those handling animals in marts and abattoirs to be vigilant for signs of the disease and to report anything suspicious to their veterinarian," Ms Rodgers added.
It is understood that pigs delivered to the abattoir last Thursday originated from two producers in the North. The lorry used has returned to the North with sheep aboard. A spokesman for the Department of Agriculture said it had been impounded while farms which received sheep from the lorry have been sealed off.
The chairman of the Ulster Farmers' Union pigs committee, Mr Charlie Pogue, yesterday warned that the North's ailing pig industry would be destroyed if the disease was found there.
"All farmers must be extremely vigilant and must practise the ultimate in hygiene," he said.