Commission set to approve GM potato

EUROPEAN Union regulators won the right to approve a genetically modified potato made by BASF after governments were split, moving the EU closer to its first authorisation in nine years of a biotech food for cultivation.

The European Commission gained the power to allow planting of the Amflora potato for use as industrial starch because EU agriculture ministers failed to muster a sufficient majority for or against the application.

Germany-based BASF genetically altered the potato to enhance its starch content for industries including textiles, packaging and adhesives.

“We aim to approve the request in the coming months,” Barbara Helfferich, environment spokeswoman at the commission,” said by phone yesterday.

“There is no risk in using the potato. In this case, the scientific evidence is irrefutable.”

The commission is pushing through approvals of products in the €4.35bn global biotech crop market over the resistance of governments including Austria, Greece and Hungary. Surveys show opposition to such foods by more than half of European consumers, who worry about risks such as human resistance to antibiotics and the development of “superweeds” impervious to herbicides.

The EU ended a six-year moratorium on new gene-altered products in 2004 after tightening labelling rules and creating a food agency to screen applications.

Bloomberg