Rome, Apr. 29 - Authorities have quarantined 102 buffalo farms in the Naples region fearing potential dioxin contamination, the Italian government said Tuesday.
"The 102 potentially contaminated buffalo farms were placed under sanitary quarantine," the health and agriculture ministries said in a joint statement.
Of 271 samples of buffalo milk taken from 173 makers of mozzarella cheese in the southern Naples, Caserta and Avellino provinces, 14.4% did not conform to the advised European Union limits for dioxin, which increases the likelihood of cancer, the statement said.
The farms were quarantined as a precaution, it added, noting that many cheesemakers bought their milk from a variety of sources.
Milk samples from the neighboring Benevento and Salerno provinces were found to conform with E.U. regulations, the statement said.
Naples and the surrounding Campania region is still struggling to recover from the crisis provoked by thousands of tons of uncollected rubbish.
But Laetitia Luiga, a chemical engineer working for one cheesemaker in the region, told AFP the chances the higher dioxin levels were produced by the people burning their household rubbish are remote.
Most of the buffaloes they used were raised in paddocks and 98% of them were outside the crisis zone created by the build-up of rubbish, she said.