The head of Morocco’s grain trade federation, FNCL, announced on Thursday that the country has halted its imports of feed from Germany due to an outbreak of foot and mouth disease.

Omar Yacoubi said that the import ban was imposed on "all non-treated plant-based animal feed from Germany because of the outbreak of foot-and mouth disease there".

Sources at Morocco's ONSSA food safety agency confirmed that imports of plant-based feeds from Germany had been "suspended", until Germany was declared foot and mouth free again or local regions were certified as being free of the disease.

On Jan. 10, Germany reported its first foot-and mouth disease outbreak in almost 40 years in a herd near Berlin, in the Brandenburg Region. This remains the only case reported so far.

Some countries, including Britain, have imposed trade restrictions on German livestock products.

The German agriculture ministry announced on January 13 that exporting farm products to countries outside of the European Union was no longer possible due to the loss of Germany’s status as being free from foot-and mouth disease.

In response to the trade restrictions, traders have reported that some exporters have sourced feed barley for Morocco from France rather than Germany.

The traders stated that other countries still accept German feed grain, and that a cargo of barley originally sold to Morocco will be shipped to Tunisia.

Foot-and mouth disease is an infectious virus that causes blisters and fever in ruminants with cloven hooves such as sheep, goats, cattle and swine. It does not pose a threat to humans.

Morocco is the only country in Africa that has not seen an outbreak of the disease since 2019.

(source: Reuters)