FSA To Review Unauthorised GM Rice Fiasco

In order to avoid any mistakes in the future, the Food Standards Agency in Europe is planning to review the handling of last year's GM rice incident, when unauthorised grain was found in samples of commercial batches on the European markets.

Last year, the illegal LL Rice 601,developed by the biotech company Bayer was found in American long grain rice supplies for export in August 2006. The rice was found to be unapproved for human consumption as no GM rice is authorised for the EU market at present.

Environmental pressure group Friends of the Earth had also claimed that FSA failed in its legal obligation to check for contaminated rice on the market in the UK last year and said that it should have done more work with local authorities and the food industry to make sure illegal GM rice was detected and removed from shelves and other parts of the market.

USA is one of the major suppliers of rice to the EU. The EU imports approximately 20.000 MT of long grain husked, semi-milled and wholly-milled rice from the USA per month on average.