Polluted Feed Scare Shuts Down German Farms

Three German livestock farms have joined some 140 in Holland and eight in Belgium that have been shut down due to the presence -- or suspected presence -- of dioxin in their animal feed.

Up to now, the German farms were shut down as a precaution, since traces of the known carcinogen have yet to be proven. Testing, however, is being carried out.

Dutch agriculture authorities named the farms as having received dioxin-contaminated feed from the Netherlands, a spokesperson for North Rhine-Westphalia's environmental ministry told news agencies in Düsseldorf. The state borders Holland and Belgium.

Potato skins are source

In the Netherlands a few weeks ago, dioxin was found in cow milk and traced to potato-skin feed that came from Canadian french-fry maker McCain. All of the nearly 150 shut down farms fed their livestock potato skins that had been treated with a specific kind of clay used in sorting the spuds, a spokeswoman for the Dutch agriculture ministry said Wednesday.

The french fries that were made from the rest of the potatoes have remained on the market, since the dioxin only stays on the skins, a McCain spokesman told reporters.

The sale of the feed has also been temporarily stopped, and an investigation is being carried out, McCain said.

Belgium affected

The Belgian food safety agency said eight Belgian farms had been closed as a precaution after the Dutch dioxin scare. The eight were mostly pig farms that had received the potato products from the Netherlands to feed animals.

Contaminated feed was at the root of recent European food scares, such as the discovery of an illegal hormone in Dutch pigs in 2002 and a 1999 Belgian scandal concerning dioxin in chickens.

Dioxins are one of a number of toxic chemicals that originate in pesticides or industrial processes, leach into rivers and lakes and build up in the flesh of fish and animals.