(Adds Irish minister's comments on pork sales)
By Jonathan Saul and Jeremy Smith
DUBLIN/BRUSSELS, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Dioxin-tainted Irish pork pulled from shelves this week poses few health risks, Europe's food safety watchdog said on Wednesday as farmers in Ireland demonstrated for processing to resume.
Ireland's farm ministry said all controls had been put in place to allow pork sales to resume, with Irish products carrying a label certifying they are free from any contaminated feed.
"The controls will be implemented by Department or local veterinary authority personnel at pigmeat slaughtering and processing plants," Ireland's farm minister Brendan Smith said.
"The purpose of the controls is to ensure that only pigmeat certified as coming from herds that are completely unaffected by the current feed contamination issue enters the food chain and is supplied to consumers," Smith said in a statement.
Earlier this week, more than 20 countries cleared their shelves of Irish pork after dioxins up to 200 times the legal levels were found on 10 pig farms.
In response to a request by the European Commission, the Italy-based European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) said on Wednesday it had examined several exposure scenarios for consumers eating pork with differing dioxin concentrations.
In the most likely scenario of daily consumption of Irish pork with 10 percent contamination over a period of 90 days, the amount of dioxins in the body would increase by about 10 percent.
"EFSA considers this increase in body burden of no concern for this single event," the agency said.
The Irish Times reported on Wednesday the contamination in animal feel at the farms may have been caused by waste oil from electrical transformers that should have been stored or destroyed.
The Irish Times, without citing sources, said the used oil originated in Northern Ireland.
The farm ministry said it was not in a position to comment on its investigations into the contamination. Ireland's Environmental Protection Agency, which is helping the ministry in the probe, also declined to comment.
The crisis escalated further on Tuesday, when authorities said three cattle herds in the Republic of Ireland were contaminated with dioxins.
Three cattle herds were also found to have been contaminated. 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 the pig farms.
FARMER FEARS
Ireland's chief veterinary officer, Paddy Rogan, told EU counterparts in Brussels on Wednesday that Irish beef was safe and could continue to be traded normally on both domestic and export markets, the farm ministry said.
Northern Ireland's authorities said eight beef herds and a separate beef and dairy herd had been identified as having consumed contaminated feed.
The British province's health ministry said that while tests were being conducted on the cattle, it was safe for consumers there to eat beef and drink milk.
Worries for Ireland's pork industry have been growing as processors continue to refuse to reopen their slaughterhouses until they get compensation for the loss of trade.
About 100 farmers protested outside the farm ministry in Dublin on Wednesday over continued delays in production especially with the crucial Christmas holiday coming up.
"Time is running out fast, very fast," said Dick Dalton, 51, a pig salesman from southern Ireland.
"The Dutch and the Danes and the Germans and all will fill our shelves in the next couple of days and it's going to be much harder for us to get that back again," Dalton told Reuters.
Tim Cullinan, head of the Irish Farmers Association's pigs committee, 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," Cullinan said.
Talks between the processors and government resumed on Wednesday and Prime Minister Brian Cowen said progress had been made.
"I remain confident of achieving an outcome that will facilitate the early resumption of processing," Cowen told deputies during a parliamentary debate.
Pat Brady, chief executive of the Associated Craft Butchers of Ireland industry body, said local veterinary authorities had allowed some Irish pork products, which had no contact with the tainted feedstock, to be released for sale.
"I know there is a problem with the slaughtering, there is a lot of safe product which was locked up as part of the recall system," Brady told public broadcaster RTE. "It appears as if in our sector at least product is beginning to flow again." (Additional reporting by Andras Gergely; editing by Karen Foster)