The Environmental Protection Agency has been asked to check all Irish plantings and seed stores of rapeseed oil following accidental contamination of large volumes of seed by a GM variety of the crop distributed throughout Europe.
The Department of the Environment, which is responsible for any genetically modified organism (GMO) authorisations in the Republic, has ordered the investigation after it emerged that herbicide-resistant GM rapeseed from Canada found its way into ordinary seed distributed to many European farms over the past year.
In Britain, the seed was distributed to up to 600 farms and sown across some 30,000 acres.
Almost 6,000 acres of rapeseed crop, also known as canola, were planted here last year but there is no indication of any contamination of Irish seed. A Department spokesman said that based on media reports and a statement from the seed company, Advanta, it was believed most of the contaminated seed was planted elsewhere.
The company said it had confirmed contaminated seed had been planted in Britain, France, Germany and Sweden. The Swedish Board of Agriculture said it was likely that farmers who used the affected seed this year would be ordered to destroy their crops.
But a spokeswoman for the British Ministry of Agriculture said the government could destroy affected crops and seeds only if there was a threat to human health or the environment. "This is not the case and therefore the government is not calling for a destruction of the crops," she added.
Agriculture Minister Mr Nick Brown said the government's policy remained that commercial planting of GM crops would not be "generally permitted" until the results of farm scale trials, due to run for another two years, had been considered.
"We believe there is no threat to the environment because the GM variety is sterile and it is difficult to see how it could cross-pollinate with other plants," he told parliament. a contamination level of less than 1 per cent was found.
Environmentalists have called for an immediate operation to ensure thousands of acres of GM crops planted unknowingly in Britain were traced and pulled up.
The canola produced from the crop is being used in foods ranging from chocolate to ice cream. and despite strict rules on food labelling.
Mr Brown said the government would press for new international legal standards of seed purity, and was setting up a spot-checking system of seed imports which would be in place from June 1st.
Oil produced from the crop is indistinguishable from conventional rape oil, Mr Brown stressed. "No modified DNA will be present."
