The agreement on a ban on mink breeding in Denmark clearly states that it is temporary and runs until and including 31 December 2021. However, as part of the agreement, it can be extended until and including 2022. However, that choice has not yet been made.
And as time has passed without a decision, there is now uncertainty among mink breeders as to whether they can start up.
– I do not understand why the Minister has suddenly created doubts about whether there can be mink breeding from 2022. Covid-19 is no longer a critical disease and the situation is completely different than it was.
– Now the minister must make a decision. Either he allows mink breeding, or he must ban it together with the support parties, says the Conservatives’ food spokesman, Per Larsen and continues:
– The government itself said that they are not against mink breeding. So it irritates me to no end that this doubt has now been created. It is almost scandalous that one has not just made a decision and left the breeders in this hopeless situation.
It is also urgent for completely impractical reasons. If the breeders are to start up in 2022, they must already buy breeding animals abroad before they are furred.
The parties have requested an account of the risks of reopening the mink industry from the Statens Serum Institut. They receive it orally on Tuesday. According to both the Conservatives and the Left, however, it is far from enough.
Because it will not take a closer look at concrete possibilities for starting mink breeding again.
– We owe the mink breeders an answer to that extent. They have been walking around in uncertainty for a long time now. There is mink breeding elsewhere in the world where it has not gone wrong.
– Therefore, it is strongly critical that the government has not asked SSI about how to have mink breeding in Denmark. They have not sought opportunities or solutions, says rapporteur for mink at the Liberal Party, Thomas Danielsen.
At SF, food spokesman Carl Valentin says the party wants to extend the temporary ban, as SSI wrote this summer that mink breeding could pose a risk of new infection reservoirs, mutations and other ailments associated with covid-19.
– Ideally, we would like to see it adopted that the ban was permanent. And thus give the growers a clear message that the most sensible thing would be to find something else to do.
– Right now they are being held in a waiting position, says Carl Valentin and continues:
– But when there is no majority for a permanent closure, then it makes the most sense to maintain the temporary ban.