Morocco halts import of German feed grains due to foot-and-mouth disease

The chairman of Morocco’s grain trade federation (FNCL) announced on Thursday that Morocco has stopped importing feed grains from Germany due to a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak.

According to Omar Yacoubi, who spoke to Reuters, the import ban applied to “all untreated plant-based feed intended for animal consumption from Germany due to the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak there.”

Plant-based imports from Germany for animal feed have been “suspended” until Germany is deemed clear of foot and mouth once more or certifies local regions that are free of the illness, according to a source at Morocco’s food safety regulator ONSSA.

On January 10, Germany reported the first foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in almost 40 years in a herd of water buffalo in the Brandenburg region, close to Berlin. So far, that is the only case that has been reported.

Some nations, including Britain, have imposed trade restrictions on German livestock-related products as a result of the outbreak.

On January 13, Germany’s agriculture ministry announced that exporting a variety of agricultural products outside the European Union would no longer be feasible due to the country’s loss of its foot-and-mouth disease-free designation.

According to traders, exporters have responded to the trade restriction by sourcing some feed barley shipments for Morocco from France rather than Germany.

Nonetheless, dealers said that one shipment of German barley originally planned for Morocco would be sent to Tunisia, and other importing nations were still taking German feed grain.

Humans are not at risk from foot-and-mouth disease, a highly contagious virus that infects cloven-hoofed ruminants like cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats and produces fever and mouth blisters.

Although the illness is common around the world, particularly in Africa, Morocco has not experienced an epidemic since 2019.