DUBLIN, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Used oil from electricity transformers may have caused the dioxin contamination in animal feed that has led to an international recall of Irish pork products, the Irish Times reported on Wednesday.
Earlier this week, more than 20 countries cleared their shelves of Irish pork after up to 200 times the legal level of dioxin was found in some pig farms due to tainted animal feed.
The Irish Times, without citing sources, said the contamination may have been caused by waste oil originating in Northern Ireland that should have been stored or destroyed.
Farm ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.
The growing crisis escalated further on Tuesday after authorities said three cattle herds in Ireland were contaminated with dioxins.
Ireland, one of the world's top five beef exporters, said there was no need to recall any Irish beef products because the level and extent of contamination in the affected animals was much lower than the levels discovered at 10 pig farms.
Ireland's chief veterinary officer Paddy Rogan will confirm to EU counterparts in Brussels on Wednesday that Irish beef is safe and can continue to be traded normally on both domestic and export markets, the farm ministry said in a statement.
"We are facing yet another big challenge for the beef industry," Aidan Cotter, chief executive of Ireland's food board said on Wednesday.
Worries for Ireland's pig meat industry continued to grow as processors have refused to reopen their slaughterhouses until they get compensation for the loss of trade.
Talks with the government will resume on Wednesday and farmers say a return to production is vital.
"If you go out to the supermarket shelves this morning they are being replaced with imported produce," said Tim Cullinan, head of the Irish Farmers Association's pigs committee.
Cullinan said stocks were building up on farms.
"We need to move 50,000 to 60,000 pigs into the processing plants on a weekly basis," he told public broadcaster RTE.
"We seem to be literally the meat in the middle of the sandwich here," he said. "We want to be back out on our farms and running our business."
(Reporting by Jonathan Saul, Editing by Peter Blackburn)