25 March, 2008 - The Food Standards Agency has written to enforcement authorities and other stakeholders to inform them that the emergency measures controlling the import of rice products from the United States, which have been in place since 2006, have been amended.
From now on each consignment of US rice must be certified free from the unauthorised GM rice, according to the same test method that is used by enforcement authorities in the EU. At the same time, the need for duplicate sampling and testing of every consignment at the point of entry to the EU has been removed.
These amendments were agreed by European Member States in December and came into force at the end of February. The requirement for duplicate testing was introduced in November 2006 when the EU and USA authorities failed to agree on a common testing method that would ensure a high degree of consistency and accuracy between tests carried out at the point of export and in the EU. Now that agreement on the test method has been reached, the need for duplicate testing has been removed.
The European Food Safety Authority has said that the contamination of US rice with this GM material is not likely to cause an imminent safety concern.