The latest crisis to hit the Northern Ireland farming industry could cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, it was feared last night.

Joe McDonald from the Ulster Farmers’ Union said that farmers across the province have been left in an uncertain position as the investigation into the extent of the contamination scare continues.

And with less than three weeks until Christmas and supermarkets across the UK removing all pork products originating from Northern Ireland from their shelves, he called for swift action from the Food Standards Agency (FSA) on the handling of the situation.

“There is going to be financial loss and there is going to be a bill for this and who is liable is a matter which remains to be seen but the farmers affected are going to need help,” he said.

A spokeswoman from DARD last night said that it was too early to speculate on whether financial support will be offered to those caught up in the scare.

Mr McDonald said: “It is definitely going to be more than tens of thousands and although there have been no exact calculations about the cost to the industry, you could be talking in the region of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

“Our members are definitely concerned. The general opinion is that this is the last thing they need, particularly at this time of year. There is a high volume of product out on the shelves and pork farmers don’t yet know what is going to happen to their stock.

“They don’t know whether they should be taking their pigs to slaughter this week. It has cast an awful lot of uncertainty over their farming.”

Mr McDonald continued by saying it is imperative that a final decision is made as to the way the scare will be dealt with to minimise its impact on the public perception of Northern Ireland pork products.

“At the end of the day the consumer is the most important person in all this, although we represent the farmers,” he said.

“As soon as we became aware of this situation developing on Saturday we called on the FSA to give the public clear guidance on what they should do as this was the exact reason it was established in the first place. So we have no problem with them telling people to avoid pork products.

“Our preference or our hope would be for the authorities to be able to say that this has been contained to a small number of farms and a small line of production and that they have been removed from the food chain so that we can get things back to normal as soon as possible.

“We would hope that pork products will be back on sale by the middle of the week. Swift action is important so that public confidence here remains high.

“Although farmers here have been through difficult times before they have got through them and we hope to get through this.

“Christmas is traditionally a very busy time of year as there is great demand for things like ham, cocktail sausages and meat for stuffing.”

He added that if the situation is dealt with quickly and efficiently and the produce is put back on sale the demand over Christmas could be a great help.