Animals: Because of swine fever: Meat processors call for intervention

Sausage producers have appealed to the state to take care of tens of thousands of animals ready for slaughter in the swine fever exclusion zone in Lower Saxony.

Animals: Because of swine fever: Meat processors call for intervention

Sausage producers have appealed to the state to take care of tens of thousands of animals ready for slaughter in the swine fever exclusion zone in Lower Saxony. It is about preventing an "animal welfare catastrophe", said the President of the Federal Association of Sausage and Ham Producers, Sarah Dhem, of the "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung". Federal Minister of Agriculture Cem Özdemir (Greens) must take care of the matter. "The state has to take over the pigs and organize the slaughter," said Dhem. The meat could then be stored and processing initiated by tender.

In doing so, she is taking up a suggestion that the association of the meat industry, i.e. the umbrella organization of the large slaughterhouses, had previously made. Dhem contradicted the accusation that the sausage producers refused to process the meat of the animals from the exclusion zone. "In essence, the meat has to be heated to 80 degrees. We can't do that in our company, for example, and neither can many others," said the association's president.

At the beginning of July, African swine fever (ASF) was found in a company in Emsbüren in Emsland. A protection and surveillance zone has been set up around the farm, affecting 300 farms with more than 190,000 animals, although there has been no further outbreak of the animal disease so far. Thousands of animals urgently need to be slaughtered, otherwise the stables will become too small. Farmers have also warned of massive animal welfare problems.

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