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MINKS

Denmark lifts Covid ban on mink fur farming

After a controversial cull of all minks in Denmark due to a coronavirus variant, the world's former top exporter will once again allow mink farming, the agriculture ministry announced on Friday.

Published: 23 September 2022 12:42 CEST
Denmark lifts Covid ban on mink fur farming
Labeled mink pelts in storage at producer Kopenhagen Fur in December 2020. A ban on mink fur farming, initially imposed due to concerns over Covid-19 mutations, will be lifted from next year. Photo: Andrew Kelly/Reuters/Ritzau Scanpix

“The temporary ban on keeping minks expires at the end of the year,” a ministry statement said, citing recommendations from health authorities.

Farmers will need to adhere to strict infection prevention measures and a control model, it added.

Denmark decided to kill all of its some 15 million minks in November 2020 after studies suggested a variant found in some of the animals could jeopardise the effectiveness of future vaccines.

The measure was rushed through and the mutation found in minks was later deemed extinct.

All breeding was subsequently banned in 2021 and 2022.

However the cull quickly turned into a political nightmare for the Social Democrat government as it later emerged there was no legal basis to impose the measure on farmers.

In early July, a commission of inquiry set up to determine responsibility for the affair concluded that Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen had made “seriously misleading” statements without having “either the knowledge or the perspective” to judge.

The commission however elected only to reprimand Frederiksen without further consequence.

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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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