Belgium's Federal Food Safety Agency has blocked at Antwerp port a 20-ton shipload of rice from the United States, VRT news reported on Friday.

The load is said to contain genetically modified rice and it is part of a 700-ton load that arrived in Antwerp last June. The Federal Food Safety Agency has now ordered the importer to call back the rice already sold to shops.

It is the first time genetically-modified rice was discovered in Belgium.

Though there is no scientific proof of genetically modified food being dangerous to public health, no biotech rice is currently allowed to be grown, sold or marketed in the EU.

The European Union has called for stronger checks on rice from the United States since it discovered that some imported U.S rice was slightly contaminated some time ago.

"Europe has asked us to keep a closer eye on rice imported from the United States and check the long grain and split rice more thoroughly," an official of the Federal Food Safety Agency was quoted as saying.

The United States is one of the major suppliers of rice to the EU, which imports approximately 20,000 tons of long grain rice from the country a month.

Source: Xinhua