Chop-chop: EU Commission approves GM maize MIR604

(30.11.2009) Only ten days after voting by the Council of Ministers, the EU Commission has approved the import of the genetically modified maize MIR604. Soybeans from this year’s harvest in the USA now may be imported to Europe.

The approval was issued at the end of November by the Commission and also allows minor, technically unavoidable admixture of MIR604 maize in agricultural raw materials and products. In the previous months, soybean deliveries from the USA repeatedly were refused entry because they contained traces of genetically modified (GM) plants unapproved in the EU. Such admixtures may be traced to dust that is generated during the harvest, transport and freight of agricultural raw materials.

Prior to MIR604, the Commission had approved in the past weeks three other GM maize varieties for import to Europe as well as with regard to food and feed produced thereof.

All four GM maize varieties are cultivated in the USA and therefore dust contact with soybean-based raw materials cannot be ruled out. Since, regardless of proportion, every confirmed find of an unapproved GM maize line in agricultural freight leads to an import ban for the entire shipment, the European market had been inaccessible to this year’s soybean harvest from the USA. In the last weeks, this prohibition already had caused the refusal of 200,000 tonnes of soybean raw material at the EU border. Subsequently, dealers all but ceased deliveries to Europe.

The approval of MIR604 maize "opens the door for large quantities of soybeans from the USA," according to a spokesperson of the European feed industry. "We need those deliveries desperately. We’ve gotten through once again by the skin of our teeth." The industry repeatedly had warned of feed scarcity resulting from problems in the import of soybeans from the USA.

The GM maize MIR 604 was developed by the Syngenta agricultural company and produces an effective Bt protein to combat the Corn root worm. The Commission approval excludes the cultivation of MIR604 maize in the EU. To date, it may be cultivated in the USA, Canada and Japan.

The EU Commission based its approval of MIR604 on the scientific safety assessment issued by the European Food Safety Authority, EFSA. The Commission is obliged to pass applications for approval with regard to GM products if the respective legal preconditions are fulfilled.

See also on GMO Compass:

• GMO Database: Maize MIR604
• EU Commission gives approval for genetically modified maize (News, 30 Oct 2009)
• Genetic engineering: feeding the EU's livestock

Further information:

• GMO Safety: maize