The Chicago Board of Trade rice futures have been bullish after the European Union's decision to end mandatory testing of U.S. rice imports.

The relaxation of the tests has come as a good news for the US rice industry even though any large increase in exports to the E.U. is likely to occur later rather than sooner in 2008.

The E.U. had banned U.S. long grain rice imports in August 2006 after the U.S. discovered some U.S.-grown rice products had been contaminated by a genetically modified, experimental rice strain, Liberty Link 601, produced by Bayer CropScience, a unit of Bayer AG (BAY).