Brussels, Sept 21 - Two shipments of U.S. rice in the Netherlands and Belgium have tested positive for a strain of unauthorised genetically modified (GMO) rice, the European Commission said on Thursday.
Commission spokesman Philip Tod also said the procedure for testing U.S. rice imports would be strengthened.
The European Union's executive arm first said earlier this month that the unauthorised GMO strain LL Rice 601 had been detected.
Tod said the new consignments that tested positive had passed through the Dutch port of Rotterdam in August after they had first been tested as free of the banned strain. But Dutch counter-tests contradicted those first results.
"In the light of these developments, the European Commission intends to take further action to strengthen the measure ... requiring the testing of U.S. long-grain rice imports for LL 601," he told a daily news briefing. An EU official said authorities in France, Britain, Germany and Belgium had been asked to carry out checks to trace any rice from the shipments.