E.U. adopts animal feed ban to stem BSE panic

The measures to combat a bloc-wide BSE crisis will go into effect January 1 for six months, but German Agriculture Minister Karl-Heinz Funke said he expected the ban to be extended beyond June. The ban on MBM, which has been linked to mad cow disease, will not cover the use of fish meal in feed meant for pork, poultry and fish, but meal made from poultry will be included. E.U. farm ministers also ordered BSE testing for all cattle older than 30 months that were going to slaughter. Those animals not tested would be removed from slaughterhouses, killed and their bodies destroyed.

The ministers also recommended that these cattle be bought after they were removed from slaughterhouses, with the European Union paying for 70 per cent of the costs and its member states picking up 30 per cent. "These are drastic measures, but there is no alternative," E.U. Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler said. Estimates indicated that 2 million cattle will have to be destroyed in the next year at a cost of 875 million euros (779 million dollars). Fischler assured E.U. citizens, however, that the agricultural budget would not be wiped out. The commission also has called for the intestines of bovines of all ages to be destroyed at slaughter rather than being turned into sausage. As ministers started their emergency discussions Monday, E.U. Consumer Affairs Commissioner David Byrne urged them to "agree on a European response to this European problem". The temporary ban on the feeding of MBM to all animals was needed because E.U. governments had been lax in implemented existing controls, Byrne said. "No member state should consider itself immune from BSE," Byrne cautioned. "And no member state can assume that it can eradicate BSE through its own efforts alone."

(dpa)