Germany has sealed off five farms believed to have received Belgian animal feed possibly contaminated with the dangerous chemical dioxin, Germany s Agriculture Ministry said on Tuesday. The pig farms are in the states of Brandenburg, Thueringen and North Rhine-Westphalia, a ministry spokeswoman said.

German authorities received word via the European Union s rapid-warning system that the farms may have received dioxin-contaminated feed from Belgium. Belgian food safety officials have quarantined about 400 pig and chicken farms there and said on Monday they may put more farms under surveillance and test their animals for traces of the toxic chemical.

The Belgian food safety agency has said the dioxin came from the use of an unfiltered ingredient to extract pig fat from the process of making gelatin at a Belgian chemical company. Authorities in the Netherlands, one of the world s top meat exporters, have quarantined about 250 farms - mostly breeding pigs - which are also suspected of receiving contaminated feed.

The German farms have initially been put in quarantine and cannot sell their animals while investigations get under way, the ministry said.
(Planet Ark, 01/02/06)