Swiss impound German feed wheat for tests
Date: 06-Jun-02
Country: GERMANY
Several hundred thousand chickens on German organic farms ate feed made with wheat contaminated with the banned herbicide nitrofen, which can cause cancer in people eating meat and eggs.
German officials yesterday were still unsure whether all causes of wheat contamination have been found and investigations continued.
Monika Boltshauser, spokeswoman for Swiss animal feed safety agency Eidgenoessische Forschungsanstalt fuer Nutztiere, told Reuters all recent German feed wheat imports had been traced and those outstanding had been impounded for nitrofen tests.
"This is a precaution only and results should be available next week," she said.
A German grain trader said Switzerland is only a small market for German feed wheat. "But if other countries follow what Switzerland is doing it would be very worrying," he said.
German authorities said the original wheat was contaminated at a grain store in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern which in the days of communist East Germany was used to store pesticides and herbicides.
German organic poultry producers in the state of Lower Saxony, the centre of the affair, between November 2001 and May 2002 sold meat from about 100,000 tainted birds to buyers in 10 German states and to Denmark, the Netherlands and Austria.
Nitrofen is banned throughout the EU but German officials stress it is only a serious danger to health when consumed over long periods.
