Danish PM in tears after mink farm visit

Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen broke down yesterday when visiting a mink farmer who lost his herd following the government’s order this month to cull all 17mn mink in the country to curb the spread of coronavirus.

The coronavirus causes the Covid-19 respiratory disease.

She has faced opposition calls to resign and a vote of no-confidence in parliament after an order by the government in early November, which it later admitted was illegal, to cull the country’s entire mink population.

The order was given after authorities found Covid-19 outbreaks at hundreds of mink farms, including a new strain of the virus, suspected of being able to compromise the efficacy of vaccines.

“We have two generations of really skilled mink farmers, father and son, who in a very, very short time have had their life’s work shattered,” Frederiksen told reporters after a meeting with a mink farmer and his son at their farm near Kolding in Western Denmark.

“It has been emotional for them, and ... sorry. It has for me too,” Frederiksen said with a wavering voice, pausing for breath in between words.

The move to cull Denmark’s entire mink population, one of the world’s biggest and highly valued for the quality of its fur, has left the government reeling after it admitted that it did not have the legal basis to order the culling of healthy mink.

After a tumultuous couple of weeks since the order was given on November 4, Agriculture Minister Mogens Jensen stepped down last week after an internal investigation revealed a flawed political process.