Northern-Ireland farmers now hit by dioxin
Farmers in Northern Ireland must destroy 7,000 cattle and meat is being banned from supermarket shelves, as a result of the recent cattle and pig feed contamination with dioxins.
Estimated damage to the farming business is up to five million pounds
(€6.34m). This will put a lot of farmers out of business.
Northern
Ireland pork has now been declared safe, however the news that so many cattle
are affected has come as a shock to farmers, who purchased the animal feed in
good faith.
Graham Furey, who is president of the Ulster Farmers’ Union,
said that the farmers were waiting on results from tests carried out by the Food
Standards Agency.
Farmers have been feeding their cattle over the last
few weeks, unsure if the meat will be able to enter the food
chain.
Compensation
Furey said that the main issue
now concerned the question of compensation for the farmers if their animals have
to be put down.
Alternatives to an Executive payment include accessing
compensation from the government in the Republic or pursuing whoever is found to
be at fault for contaminating the feed.
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