Representatives from the 15 EU states met in Brussels to decide whether to license two new strains of swede rape from Agrevo -- a joint venture between Hoechst AG and Schering AG -- and Plant Genetic Systems, an Agrevo unit.They were also debating whether to give the green light to a fodder beet put forward jointly by Danisco, Monsanto and Danish seed companies.

Commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde-Hansen said it was looking unlikely that the committee would be able to vote on the applications at this stage and another meeting before the end of the year was likely.

"I think we will see another regulatory committee meeting in1999," Ahrenkilde-Hansen told reporters. She said a number of countries wanted the applicant companies to come forward with more information on what they planned to do to meet concerns about the safety of new GMOs.

No new GM crops have been approved in the EU since April1998 amid growing consumer concern about the safety of foods derived from them.

The EU is halfway through updating its approvals system tomeet some of these worries and biotechnology firms pledged in August to try to bring their applications into line with the changes being made. Commission officials said these changes might include better tracing of the products throughout the processing chain, enhanced consultation of the public and scientific experts, clearer labelling requirements and a possible time-limit for any new authorisations.

Meanwhile, the amount of land planted to genetically modified (GM) crops around the world is expected to leap this year by more than 40 percent, a senior official from Monsanto Co said last week. "Significant increases were in China, Argentina, Canada and South Africa," Paul Teng, Monsanto director for biotechnology in the Asia-Pacific, said in a paper presented to a conference.

Teng cited data showing land area planted to genetically modified crops was estimated to rise by 44 percent to 39.9 million hectares (98.55 million acres) this year from the previous year's level. Three countries -- Portugal, Romania and Ukraine - had commercial plantings for the first time this year, he told an Asian rice conference in this island in central Philippines. The debate over the safety of genetically modified foodshas grown increasingly fierce, with companies like Monsanto saying that biotechnology offers better, hardier crops. Critics counter that the long-term effects are far from clear. Teng told Reuters he thought food labelling on foodscontaining GM ingredients may ease the fears of consumers.

"I think labelling is a good thing in the sense thatconsumers should know what they are eating," he said. But "people need to realise that it's not so easy to detectproduct composition," Teng said, adding such tests are costly.Debates on whether to require firms to label food productsusing ingredients from GM crops are heating up in Asia. Use of GM food is widely accepted in the United States, but has encountered strong resistance in Britain.