Fischer, of the environmentalist Greens party, said she was resigning because the public had lost faith in her ministry. Financial interests dominate and are put above consumer interests. On top of that consumers are reluctant to pay the price for good food. Fischer has also faced questions on whether scientific warnings were acted on promptly after arriving and appeared indecisive on whether some German sausage was safe to eat. Funke had spoken up in defense of factory farming, putting himself publicly at odds with Schroeder.
Officials say it is due to grain feed tainted with animal matter.
EU experts said on Tuesday that testing was throwing up more cases than expected across the continent. The Belgian Federal Agency for Food Safety reported 161 cases of BSE in 2000, more than five times the number detected in 1999. In the first week of testing of meat from cattle over 30 months, said it had found 14 suspected cases of the brain-wasting disorder out of 2,762 animals tested. This suggested that one out of every 200 cows in Belgium could be infected. Increased testing of higher-risk cattle over 30 months old, part of a package of measures agreed by members of the European Union late last year, had been expected to show a low rate of infection and restore consumer confidence in beef across Europe.