Adventitious Presence of GM Material in Organic Mash

Organic mash samples taken by the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture for an analysis, contained various amounts of GM materials says the Ministry’s General Inspection Service. Of the 62 samples taken by the Ministry in 2006 and 2007, 18 percent contained GM soy under the EU-agreed 0.9 percent GMO threshold. Two samples, however, were found to contain higher than 0.9 percent and were not labeled as required by the European Union guidelines. These samples were taken from mashed based on soy. Further investigation revealed that all the cases of GM admixture were unintended.

It is unclear how European labeling guidelines should be interpreted if the GM material found in feed that was not added deliberately by the producer. The Dutch Minister of Agriculture raised this concern at the EU Standing Committee for Food and Feed and the European Commission said that it would react this fall.

The article is available at http://www.coextra.eu/country_reports/news1279_en.html