CONTAMINATED PIG FEED

BRUSSELS, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Belgium said on Tuesday it had found the same cancer-causing chemicals in pig feed that it had found in chicken feed made by a local compounder, raising fears of another dioxin-type scandal.

Health officials said two samples of pig feed made by the compounder in the western Flemish town of Roeselare near the French border had traces of polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs.

Their level of contamination exceeded by up to eight times the national threshold of 200 micrograms per kg, according to the federal agency in charge of safety in the food chain, known by its French acronym AFSCA.

"Given the measured value of the meal and the short exposure of the animals, the expected concentrations in the fat of the pigs are not expected to be alarming," it said in a statement.

The feed went to eight pig farms on January 4.

Four of the farms sent pigs to slaughterhouses before they were ordered by the AFSCA to stop deliveries.

The AFSCA said it was still trying to locate the pork sent to market.

On January 18, the agency seized 4,500 pieces of frozen chicken at a slaughterhouse in the nearly town of Torhout, but not before another 13,500 pieces had gone to the market.

The AFSCA was set up after a scandal broke in 1999 over cancer-causing dioxins entering the food chain through animal feed, leading to Belgian meat and dairy exports being banned by many countries around the world.