BERLIN (Yonhap) North Korea has recently asked Germany, currently in the grip of a mad cow disease crisis, to provide it with a donation of 200,000 heads of cattle as food aid, a German news report said Feb. 12.

Germany? public broadcasting station ARD said that the North delivered its wishes to the German Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry through "Cap Anamur," a German relief agency operating in North Korea.

Fears of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, has caused beef consumption in Germany to plummet, with slaughterhouses operating at only 30 percent capacity and consumption decreasing by 80 percent. A total of 400,000 cows are to be slaughtered in an attempt to weed out older cows that are more susceptible to the deadly disease.

Mad cow disease is believed to be linked to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which can be fatal to humans.

ARD, citing a Cap Anamur spokesman, said that North Korea wants the donation only if the Berlin government consents to it, despite the German BSE crisis.

Germany earlier considered donating beef to third world nations by slaughtering only those cows not directly linked to BSE.