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MINKS

One percent of mink breeders apply for money to resume business

Around one percent of all mink breeders have applied for money to be able to keep their businesses dormant and then continue operations, if mink breeding is allowed again in Denmark, according to the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration. This equates to just 13 mink breeders who may open their businesses again.

Published: 2 April 2022 17:44 CEST
A mink farm in North Jutland
A mink farm in North Jutland in October 2020. Photo: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix

1246 mink breeders on the other hand, have applied for compensation because they expect to close their businesses, according to the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration (Fødevarestyrelsen).

At midnight on Saturday, the deadline expired for when Danish mink breeders could apply for what the agency calls dormant compensation (dvalekompensation) or closure compensation (nedlukningserstatning).

It is not known whether all mink breeders in Denmark have applied. But the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration has written on its website that it expected to receive applications from around 1,200 mink businesses.

Breeding mink in Denmark has been banned since November 2020, when government ordered that all minks in Denmark to be culled on November 4th after a mutated version of the new coronavirus was detected at its mink farms and had spread to people. The mutated form is now considered to have been eradicated.

The culling order of around 15 million minks, issued by the government was later found to be illegal, and an official commission has since been appointed to scrutinise it. The commission is due to report its findings in April 2022.

A political agreement was reached in January 2021 on a compensation package for the mink breeders and people in related industries who lost their livelihoods. The package has been set up to around 18.8 billion kroner (around €1.6 billion).

According to the plan, mink breeding should be possible again from next year. But Minister of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Rasmus Prehn has previously stated that the Statens Serum Institut (SSI) will make an assessment of whether this can happen on the 2nd May.

In the latest assessment from June last year, it was stated by SSI, among other things, that keeping mink in Denmark “may entail a health risk for people of unknown size”.

According to the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries,  there are six independent commissions that must assess and determine how much money each mink breeder and related professions can have in compensation.

The money is paid out as the cases are processed. The last mink breeders may have to wait until the end of 2024.

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MINKS

Denmark ejects mink breeders from compensation committees 

Mink fur breeders in Denmark will no longer influence the amount paid out in compensation to fellow breeders whose farms were closed during the Covid pandemic, the government has said.

Published: 12 April 2024 13:20 CEST
Denmark ejects mink breeders from compensation committees 

Mink fur breeders will no longer participate on committees which decide how much compensation to award other mink breeders, agriculture minister Jacob Jensen confirmed to broadcaster DR on Thursday.

The government set aside billions of kroner for compensation to mink breeders after ordering all fur farm minks be destroyed in late 2020, over concerns related to Covid-19 mutations in the animals. The order to destroy the minks was later found to be illegal in a major scandal for the government.

Recent reports by media Zetland have described how the breeders have gained influence over the compensation through their presence on the committees.

“We don’t think there should be direct representation on the commissions,” Jensen told DR.

READ ALSO: Danish mink fur breeders received ‘too much compensation’

The change in practice will require a formal agreement between the government and the opposition parties who agreed to the mink breeder compensation programme, but this is not expected to present an obstacle.

A review of 27 compensation cases by Zetland found that mink fur breeders had the highest representation of any professional group involved in the commissions, whose remit is to decide the amount to award individual breeders in compensation.

Not including independent chairpersons, 7 out of 10 commission members were put up by either the mink fur industry or Landbrug & Fødevarer, the interest organisation for the agriculture sector. Some commission members are waiting for their own claims to be resolved, Zetland reported.

Jensen said he wanted the commissions to have a “better composition”.

That could include judges, economists or others who “have knowledge of the value of property,” he said.

In comments to newswire Ritzau, the chairperson of mink fur interest organisation Kopenhagen Fur, Tage Pedersen, said his “first thought is it’s a shame, because I think we had a good system”.

Changing the existing system means further delays for fur breeders awaiting compensation, while it is the farmers themselves who are in the best position to evaluate the value of a farm, he noted.

“But I also have say that me and my family and all other mink breeders and their families have been harassed so much over the last eight days that we can’t take it anymore. So actually I am also relieved,” he said.

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