Brussels, 06/06/2002 (Agence Europe) - During the Animal Feed and Health Chain Permanent Committee's most recent meeting on Wednesday, Dutch, Austrian and Danish vets confirmed that their countries had received deliveries of meat and poultry fed on German cereals that could have been contaminated by Nitrofen. The Commission had been informed at the end of May of this contamination, has only asked Germany to provide it with updates on the volumes and countries involved in the contamination. Germany affirmed last week that no suspect products had been exported to the EU or third countries. Several countries, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Lithuania have closed their borders to poultry and animal feed from Germany. The Netherlands have announced a strengthening of controls on German products and Russia might suspend poultry imports if it doesn't get the information is has requested.
The origin of the bio-cereal contamination of Nitrofen has been determined
After a week of investigations, Germany has discovered the cause of the contamination: cereals containing traces of Nitrofen, which had been delivered by the animal feed manufacturer (GS Agri) to hundreds of organic farms in Germany were contaminated at the Malchin depot (Neubrandenburg, Mecklembourg-Pomerania). Highly toxic phyto-sanitary products, including Nitrofen (carcinogenic herbicide) from Lindane or DDT had been stocked here and exposure of the former RDA and buildings had been sold without being cleaned after reunification in the country. Renate Künast, Minister of Agriculture, asserted last Saturday that their information indicated that the contamination came from a single source. This was reiterated four days later despite indications to the contrary from Mecklembourg-Pomerania
The German authorities have ordered the closure of the NSP wholesaler, which provided almost 120 farms affiliated to the Bioland and Naturland labels in several German regions with no less than 550 tons of animal feed containing Nitrofen. The animal feed manufacturer GS Agri had to temporarily deliveries of its products where traces of Nitrofen were discovered in its products. Several thousand egg-laying chickens fed on contaminated cereals were slaughtered at the end of May. More than 350, 000 tons of poultry and eggs have been withdrawn from sales but a large number of poultry products fed on the contaminated fee have very possibly been sold and consumed. Pig breeding, beef and dairy cows form the organic subsidiary would not have been contaminated with the toxin. Traditional agriculture is not likely to be affected by this outbreak.