German action plan after dioxin food scare

Germany's agriculture minister has presented an "action plan" aimed at preventing a repeat of this month's scare over dioxin poisoning in eggs and pork.

Agriculture minister Ilse Aigner says current investigations suggest that there has been dioxin contamination but she's ordering a complete examination of the antimal-feed industry agribusiness practices.

"One thing is clear, this case will have consequences," Ilse Aigner told a news conference in Berlin.

"Even if our current investigations suggest that the dioxin contamination was because of a criminal act, I am using this as a reason to examine the entire animal feed industry, from raw materials to the stall," she said.

The scare began last week when it emerged that a German firm may have supplied some 3,000 tonnes of fatty acids only meant for industrial uses to makers of animal feed late last year.

The feed was then widely distributed.

Around 100,000 eggs were destroyed while some 4,700 farms were banned from selling their products were closed pending tests.

The vast majority of these farms have since been given the all-clear.

On Tuesday, authorities said that pork with high levels of dioxin had been discovered at a farm in the state of Lower Saxony, and that potentially tainted meat from the farm could be in shops.

South Korea and China have banned German pork imports, while Japan has ordered importers to report all pork shipments.

Slovakia outlawed the sale of German eggs and poultry meat but the ban was lifted on Wednesday.

The German government said previously that none of the up to 150,000 tonnes of suspect animal feed had been exported, but the European Commission said this week that some had in fact made it to Denmark and France.