Illegal rice must be kept out of Europe.

This is the premise behind proposals to reinforce controls of long grain American rice entering the EU. The European Commission will table the plan next week. EU regulators have decided to force testing of all U.S. long-grain rice imports to prove the absence of a genetically modified (GMO) strain not allowed in Europe: LL601.

Earlier this month, the European Commission stepped up efforts to negotiate a common sampling protocol with U.S. authorities to detect the GMO rice strain, which has turned up in the food chains of at least nine EU countries since August. According to Brussels data, the European Federation of Rice Millers said in September that of 162 samples examined, 33 tested positive for LL601. The Commission reminded the industry of its obligation to inform authorities when a consignment on their markets is found to contain an unauthorised GMO.

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