Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Diep Kinh Tan asked police to join stopping the use of banned agents in animal feed.
Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Diep Kinh Tan asked police to join stopping the use of banned agents in animal feed.
Authorities have recently detected banned agents in animal feed in the southern province of Dong Nai, including Ractopamine which is used to increase the volume of lean meat in pigs and boost the animals' growth.
Tan said that the agents were available in feed stores and veterinary drugstores for low prices, making it hard to control.
The ministry's Livestock Department and the ministries of Health and Industry and Trade would work together to define the harmful effects the agents had to human health, he said.
Together with testing results, information about farms that used banned agents would be published, he said.
Deputy director of the Livestock Department Nguyen Thanh Son announced that only 1.2 per cent of tested samples from Dong Nai contained banned agents, less than the previous figure reported of 42 per cent.
No contaminated samples were found in northern provinces, but the news has badly affected the domestic livestock market, with the price of pork down by VND10,000 (US$0.5) per kilo this month.
Son said that it was necessary to adjust legal documents to ensure agents including Salbutamol, Clenbuterol and Ractopamine are completely banned from circulation, and only used as prescription drugs to treat human respiratory diseases.
(Source:VNS)
