France and Sweden have detected the presence of an unauthorised strain of genetically modified rice, a European Union diplomat said on Tuesday (12/09). "The two countries which have detected the GMO rice are France and Sweden," he told reporters before adding that neither country had used validated testing methods.

The announcement comes after the European Commission, the EU executive, confirmed on Monday that 33 out of 162 results of rice samples carried out by members of the European Federation of Rice Millers tested positive for the strain. It added that three bargeloads within a 20,000-tonne US rice cargo detained in Rotterdam had tested positive, while 20 other bargeloads had tested negative.

However, tests in Germany had proved negative, the diplomat said on Tuesday, despite claims by environment group Greenpeace International that a strain of LL601 rice had been found in branches of discount supermarket Aldi Nord in Germany. Aldi said no GMO rice had been found at its Aldi Nord operations.

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Bayer in Frankfurt said the company did not sell or produce LL Rice 601. She said the strain was developed by Aventis CropScience, a company bought by Bayer in 2002, but that development had been discontinued in 2001.

At present, no biotech rice at all is allowed to be grown, sold or marketed in the 25 countries of the EU. In August, the European Commission tightened requirements on US long-grain rice imports to prove the absence of biotech rice strain LL601, which it said was marketed by Germanys Bayer AG and produced in the United States.

The Commission s August decision followed the discovery by US authorities of trace amounts of LL601, engineered to resist a herbicide, in long-grain samples that were targeted for commercial use.
(Por Jeremy Smith, Planet Ark, 13/09/2006)