As the Department of Agriculture and Food continued its efforts to recover contaminated animal feed imported here last month, Dutch, German and Belgian farms are caught up in a new dioxin scare.
A total of 162 Dutch cattle, pig, sheep and goat farms, as well as eight farms in Belgium and three in Germany, have been shut as a precaution after officials discovered earlier in the week that they all bought a potato cattle-feed product that was contaminated with dioxin.
The contaminated potato-feed product was from the Dutch unit of privately-held Canadian potato chip-maker McCain. The cause was a German-made clay used for sorting potatoes, McCain has said.
Potato peelings left over from chip production are used for making animal feed. McCain Foods Holland has also launched a broader investigation after halting feed sales from its three Dutch factories last week. Examinations of feed and animals and any impact on the food chain, such as in meat and milk, are still under way in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium, and results could be available next week.
"Reopening of the farms will depend on the result of the tests. The meat tests are not expected to be ready before Monday," a Dutch agriculture ministry spokeswoman said.
The German state ministry said it would take until the middle of this week to complete tests on feed and animals. Initial Dutch results have shown contaminated milk at only two of the affected farms and relatively low dioxin levels in meat from other farms, authorities said on Thursday.
All affected farms in the three countries had been tracked down and no more closures were expected.
The European Commission and authorities in the three countries have ruled out serious risk to public health, saying contaminated animal products from the involved farms had not reached consumers. However, the dioxin scare has spread outside the involved countries and officials in South Korea imposed a ban on imports of pork and dairy products from the three EU member-states, according to media reports. Korean Internet news agency Edaily said on Friday the Korea Food and Drug Association also planned to collect food products imported from those countries from the market.
Dioxins are one of a number of toxic chemicals that originate in pesticides or industrial processes, seep into rivers and lakes and build up in fish and animals.