Conservative Agriculture spokesman in the European Parliament, Richard Ashworth MEP, has said that the ongoing scare surrounding high dioxin levels in eggs and meat from German farms highlights the need for better traceability systems in order to prevent widespread recall of products.

German authorities have closed more than 4,700 farms to allow tests to be carried out. The German Agriculture Ministry has subsequently discovered that 136,000 eggs were exported to Holland and another batch has entered the UK in processed foods. 

Mr Ashworth said:

"This latest scare makes the case for effective labelling and traceability systems all the more urgent. In particular, there must be country of origin labelling on products so that consumers know where the products they are buying have come from. There should also be far more effective traceability systems set up, which would allow products to be traced directly in the case of a scare such as this. The industry needs to take the lead on this, rather than having it forced on them by EU legislation.

"Information about this scare has dripped out, raising unnecessary concerns amongst consumers. Information should be readily available at all stages of the food chain.

"The overwhelming majority of chicken and eggs are safe to eat. The recall is merely a precaution, but it should never have become a scare of this scale."

Hundreds of Pigs to be killed

A German state agricultural minister says hundreds of pigs must be killed on a farm in Lower Saxony because their meat contains high levels of dioxin.

Lower Saxony's agriculture Minister Gert Hahne said the high levels of dioxin were found early Tuesday at a farm in the county of Verden.

The farm was being examined because it had bought livestock feed from the German firm Harles & Jentzsch GmbH, which had produced fat used in tainted feed pellets. Samples of the fat contained more than 70 times the approved amount of dioxin.

The scandal broke last week when German investigators found excessive levels of dioxin in eggs and then some chicken. Authorities then froze sales of poultry, pork and eggs from thousands of farms. Some 558 remain banned.