The UK import ban affects not only the import of live animals such as cattle, pigs, and sheep, but also fresh meat products. This is a sensitive blow for Germany, as the UK is an important trading partner for agricultural products. Consequently, the German meat industry will lose roughly 20 percent of its sales market for at least the next three months.
This means that large quantities of meat will now have to find new buyers within Europe. The large Danish meat group Danish Crown operates a pig slaughterhouse and two cattle slaughterhouses in Germany. The export of beef from Germany to countries outside Europe has now almost completely come to a halt, according to the slaughterhouse.
The director of the largest German slaughterhouse, Tönnies, expects a short-term revenue loss of half a billion euros for the meat industry and a collapse in producer prices. However, German pig farmers are not very impressed because their exports to non-EU countries have already been largely halted due to the presence of African swine fever in Germany.
A protection zone of three kilometers has been established around the affected company in eastern Germany, within which a transportation ban applies for livestock and their products. In addition, a surveillance area was set up within a radius of ten kilometers. The veterinary committee of the European Commission approved the measures taken by the German federal states against the FMD outbreak on Tuesday.
With the EU's approval of the protection zone, transportation ban, and culling at the affected company, German dairy and meat trade can continue within the 27 EU countries. German Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir called it 'good news' for the sector that Brussels did not expand the zone around the crisis area.
Within the European Union, the threat of foot-and-mouth disease has effectively been considered averted since the 1990s. Germany has also held the status of 'free from foot-and-mouth disease without vaccination' from animal health organizations for decades. But since last Friday, that status has ended.