The warning came at this week’s meeting of the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council as ministers urged the Commission to improve the approval procedure for new biotech crops.

Their fears are based on a report from the directorate general for Agriculture and Rural Development which found that under current regulations, the EU is facing a major feed shortage that could put up to a third of livestock farmers out of business.

Slow approvals of new crops and the EU’s zero-tolerance stance on unapproved varieties ran the risk of disrupting feedstocks, the report found.

The main problem comes from ‘asynchronous approvals’ with countries such as Brazil, the US and Argentina approving new crops at a much faster rate than the EU.