LONDON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Some cattle in Northern Ireland have eaten feed contaminated with dioxins, Britain's food safety watchdog, the Food Standards Agency (FSA), said on Tuesday.
The announcement followed news earlier on Tuesday that illegally high levels of dioxins had been found in three of 11 cattle herds tested in Ireland.
"The Food Standards Agency is aware that contaminated feed has been fed to some cattle in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland," the FSA said in a statement.
"We are currently undertaking tests to asses what level of contamination, if any, may be present in potentially affected herds."
Feed contaminated with high levels of dioxins was also sent to 10 pig farms in Ireland and nine pig farms in Northern Ireland.
Ireland on Saturday ordered the food industry to recall all domestically produced pork products while Britain's FSA has advised consumers to avoid pork products from either Ireland or the British province of Northern Ireland.
An EU official said that Britain has to tell EU food safety regulators by the end of Tuesday what it will do about pork coming from the Northern Irish farms that bought tainted animal feed from Ireland.
"We would expect the risk of contaminants in beef to be significantly lower than in pork," the FSA said.
"Cattle consume a wider variety of feeds and the way their bodies process the feed is different which makes the risk of contamination much lower," the statement said. (Reporting by Nigel Hunt; Editing by Karen Foster)