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Irish beef farms contaminated with toxic substance

Tuesday, 9 December 2008

Three Irish beef farms have been contaminated with a toxic substance which devastated the country's pig meat industry, food safety chiefs confirmed today.

But Irish Agriculture Minister Brendan Smith insisted there was no public health concerns after tests were carried out on 11 herds believed to have been given an infected feed.

Three farms breached safe limits while a further eight have been given the all-clear.

The levels of dioxins found in the beef were two to three times above safe limits compared to 200 times for the pig meat which has devastated the pork sector.

Mr Smith said: "There is no public health concern.

"The results show that eight out of 11 herds are clear and three are above the proposed legislative limits.

"This would make the samples technically non-compliant but not at a level that would pose any public health concern."

The Department of Agriculture also stressed the relatively low numbers of beef slaughtered in the last three months which could have been infected by harmful dioxins.

Since September 1 only 3,000 cattle have been processed out of the yearly total of 1.5 million - 0.2% of the annual figure.

Officials said 45 cattle herds had been placed under restriction, 34 were undergoing tests and the eight herds given the all-clear would go back into the food chain.

The beef industry is Ireland's largest and most important farming sector and is worth 2.5 billion euro (£2.1 billion) a year.

Padraig Walshe, president of the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA), hit out at failures in the food sector.

"Absolutely no traceability has fallen down at farm level," Mr Walshe said.

"Any problem with traceability has been before with feed going to farm or the process afterwards.

"It's very disappointing if other procedures weren't put in place in other parts of the food chain."

Ireland's pig meat sector was thrown into crisis after tests revealed pork was infected by dioxins from a contaminated feed.

Unlicensed oil used in a burner to dry food stuffs tainted breadcrumbs being supplied to 56 farms in the Republic of Ireland - ten pig and 37 beef.

The feed was also supplied to eight beef farms in Northern Ireland.