The latest German dioxin
scandal is not the first feed scandal in
Germany and for sure it will not be the
last from our system of highly industrialised
and globalised agriculture.
The feed industry buys
cheap ingredients like saw mill waste, fish
waste, industrial fats, genetically engineered
crops and other disgusting stuff.
Consumers need to realise
that organic is the safer choice, as the
feed is better controlled, and farmers have
to produce a huge proportion of the feed
by themselves or buy it from regional sources.
Ingredients like industrial fats are not
allowed.
The recent scandal was
uncovered one day before Christmas, when
one feed producer informed the authorities
that he found dioxin in his feed. Six days
later a feed production site in northern
Germany was closed and at beginning of January
dioxin was found in eggs and later in pigs.
Almost 5,000 farms in Germany were closed
down for precautionary reasons.
Drop by drop more information
came out: one producer had used industrial
fats for feed production and sold them to
25 feed producers who mixed those fats into
feed and sold that to farmers.
But still nobody really
knows how the dioxin got into the fats...
Every time we thought,
that the story had reached its climax we
learned, that it can always get worse. The
dioxin fats were being sold at least since
March last year. The fat producer knew about
the problem and tried to solve it with the
old recipe: "The solution to pollution
is dilution..."
And oops! Somehow one
feed producer was discovered only last weekend
and almost 1000 more farms had to be closed.
Our politicians are blaming each other and
the industry.
The Minister announced
better controls, better information and
stricter regulations for feed, but the main
problem remains untouched: the industrial
system of mass production at low prices.
I'm
happy to see people buying more organic
eggs and other animal products. Let`s hope
that this trend lasts longer than the media
coverage of the dioxin scandal.
