Illegal Gm Maize Fear Sparks Eu Ban on Us Animal Feeds

The European Union yesterday imposed an emergency ban on imports of US animal feeds unless they are proven to be free of illegal genetically modified maize.

The ban, on corn gluten feed and brewers' grains, followed an admission by Syngenta, a Swiss-based agrochemical firm, that about 1,000 tonnes of US maize derived from its unlicensed Bt10 GM seeds had "inadvertently" entered the European food chain over the past four years.

The EU adopted the ban after the US authorities and Syngenta failed to provide information enabling a safety assessment of Bt10 or testing of food and feed imports for the illegal maize.

Under the ban, which also follows the discovery of illegal GM rice from China in Britain and other EU countries, US feeds will be allowed into the EU only if an accredited laboratory has produced an analytical report proving that they have not been contaminated by Bt10.

Markos Kyprianou, the EU's health and consumer protection commissioner, said: "Imports of maize products which are certified as free of Bt10 will be able to continue but we cannot and will not allow a genetically modified organism which has not gone through our rigorous authorisation procedures to enter the EU market."

But Christoph Then, a Greenpeace genetic engineering expert, said lax controls in the US and elsewhere meant that Europe remained exposed to high-risk imports of illegal GMOs in wheat, rice, soya beans and rape seed as well as maize. The US condemned the ban, insisting there were no hazards to health, safety or the environment from Bt10.

"All current plantings in the US and seed stock have been identified and either destroyed or quarantined for future destruction," a spokesman said.