January 16, 2006

EU authorises three types of Monsanto GM corn

The EU Friday cleared three types of GM corn made by Monsanto for use in the single market.

Two types of corn will be used for food and food ingredients and the third mainly will be used for animal feed.

The GM corn--designed to resist several types of pests--cannot be cultivated in Europe, only imported.

GM crops are a divisive issue in Europe. The Brussels-based Commission wants to allow them in order to defuse trade tensions with the US and to keep European agriculture competitive.

Friday's decision brings to nine the total of GM strains licenced for use in the EU since a European six-year moratorium on GM crops ended in May 2004. During the moratorium, Europe granted another seven licenses for non-food or health-related modified strains, according to EU statistics.

France, Portugal and the Czech Republic last year joined Spain and Germany in growing some GM corn commercially, but the combined area under biotech cultivation is still only about 100,000 hectares. By contrast, the US cultivated about 49.8 milllion hectares in 2005, according to a recent report by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications, a non-profit biotech foundation.

Biotech farming has taken some knocks recently. An Indian cotton-growing region has banned Monsanto seeds and is taking the company to court after the company's cotton seeds delivered low cotton yields. Bulgaria has stopped growing GM crops, and Romanian farmers using GM soybean seeds will have to switch to non-GM crops as Romania begins the process of joining the EU.

Nonetheless, the industry expects a surge in the use of the technology now that Iran is growing GM rice and China is expected to do so too.