www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

EU biotech experts have lifted extra controls on U.S. maize products for
proving the absence of an unauthorised genetically modified (GMO) organism
since they are no longer needed, the European Commission said, January 2007.

In April 2005, the EU said U.S. exports of corn gluten feed and brewers'
grains, a by-product of ethanol, had to be certified by an internationally
accredited laboratory to prove the absence of Bt-10 maize, a GMO not
authorised in Europe.

"Today, (EU) member states voted in favour of lifting the EU requirement for
all imports of U.S. corn gluten feed and brewers' grain to be certified as
free from the GMO Bt-10," the Commission said in a statement.

Developed by Swiss agrochemicals group Syngenta (SYNN.VX), Bt-10 maize is
designed to resist certain insects. It is similar to Bt-11, a different GMO
strain that won EU approval for distribution as food and feed in 1998.

Bt-10 maize was detected only once, in May 2005, in a U.S. shipment to the
EU but the shipment was stopped at the border so that the contaminated
product did not reach EU markets.

Bt-10 was last detected in the United States in November 2005, the
Commission said. Since then, Syngenta had taken a series of measures to
ensure that this GMO was no longer propagated, it added.

EU countries will have to continue random testing for Bt-10 for six months
as a precaution.

U.S. exporters send 3.5 million tonnes of corn gluten feed to EU markets
each year, a trade worth some 350 million euros ($454 million).

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