EU cannot guarantee absence of GM rice in European market

The European Commission warned Thursday that it could not guarantee that an unauthorized strain of genetically modified rice from the United States was not present in the EU market.

Last week the European Commission ordered that imports of long grain rice from the United States be certified free of an unauthorized genetically modified strain which has been detected in the US.

Despite the measures, commission spokesman Philip Tod said: "We cannot exclude that the contamination of products has taken place, so we ask member states to carry out extensive tests of products on the market."

Tod warned that there was evidence that the rice may have entered US supplies long before GM-free certification was required.

"The contamination dates back some time and could date back to January of this year, if not earlier, according to the information we have from the industry," he said.

Currently no GM rice is authorized in the EU for food, use in animal feed, cultivation or import.

Since GM-free certification was required last week, Dutch custom officials have detected a shipment of US rice suspected to contain the GM strain, Tod said.

The consignment, which was bound for Britain and Germany, is being held while authorities await confirmation of whether the shipment includes the GM strain.

Last year, the EU imported 198,000 tonnes of long-grain rice from the Untied States, worth 52 million euros (67 million dollars), according to the commission.

Under the new requirement, shipments of US long grain rice have to be tested by accredited laboratories, which must provide a certificate showing that the consignment is free of the GM strain.

Both US authorities and Bayer CropScience, which produced the strain of rice, have found that the GM rice represents no risk to humans or the environment.

However, environmental groups are outraged that the rice has ended up in the US market and some have called for a outright ban on imports of US rice to the EU.