Dioxin contamination has been discovered at another farm in Germany, following the introduction of tighter monitoring and safety checks.

Eggs tainted with the poisonous compound, associated with burning rubbish and a number of industrial processes, were discovered on a farm in Lower Saxony, German authorities said today. The discovery is the ninth in four months, all in the North-West of the country.

The discovery was made during routine checks at a large free-range poultry farm near Aurich. The eggs have been removed from sale and the farm has been quarantined pending an investigation into the source of the contamination.

Stricter safety regulations and feed laws were introduced in Germany following a Europe-wide health scare which erupted in January 2011 when a German feed firm, Harles and jentzsch, was found to have produced and distributed feeds made from by-products of biofuel manufacture and contaminated with high levels of dioxin.    

Last year’s dioxin scare resulted in the temporary closure of nearly 5,000 farms and withdrawal of pig and poultry meat and eggs from sale in a number of European countries.  

Although investigators initially though contaminated feed had been the cause of contamination in this year’s cases, it is now thought that tainted ground has been behind a number of incidents; in one case free-range chickens were allowed to roam on ground previously contaminated by construction materials and in another tainting was traced back to hens pecking at a piece of polystyrene.

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