If approved, the measure would in effect lift a five-year European Union ban on genetically modified (GM) foods.

"There was no significant change in the positions," Irish Minister Joe Walsh said to explain why no qualified majority had been reached.

The outcome was expected because of wide differences of opinion on the question, and lays responsibility at the feet of EU commissioners who favor lifting the ban.

Approval could sit poorly with EU consumers, however, since most are opposed to GM products.

EU health commissioner David Byrne was disappointed that farm ministers had not approved the sale of BT-11, but said that under EU regulations, a procedure to study the issue could begin on May 4.

"It will take a week or two, then there will be a discussion," Byrne told reporters.

"I expect that this issue will be in front of the Commission (in) late May or early June ... I don't expect any opposition."

In December, six countries -- Britain, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden -- voted to allow imports of BT-11 sweetcorn at a meeting of the EU Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health.

Belgium, Germany and Italy abstained from the vote, while Austria, Denmark, France, Greece, Luxembourg and Portugal voted against.

According to sources, Italy moved into the approval camp on Monday, trading places with Spain which under a new government was now neutral on the issue.

By allowing the Swiss firm Syngenta to import the sweetcorn, the ministers would have effectively scrapped a moratorium on the import and cultivation of GM products imposed by the European Union in 1999.

The commission -- the EU's executive arm -- openly supports lifting the moratorium to boost the GM industry in Europe.

The freeze was imposed against a backdrop of public concern on the issue of so-called "Frankenfoods", at the initiative of Denmark, France, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg -- later joined by Austria and Belgium.

The United States, which has the world's biggest biotech industry, leads a group of 12 countries seeking to overturn the EU moratorium through the World Trade Organisation.

Environmentalists oppose allowing BT-11 onto the market, arguing that it has yet to be proven safe for human consumption, and the Greenpeace pressure group slammed Monday what it called a "shameful" result by the EU farm ministers.

"There may not have been a qualified majority of ministers to reject BT-11 but there is one in the public opinion, which does not want GMOs (genetically modified organisms) on its plate," the organisation said in a statement.

New EU rules on labelling and tracing GM foods took effect on April 18 however, introducing rigorous consumer safeguards that could make it easier for Brussels to lift the moratorium.

Consumer rights and environmental groups have welcomed the rules, officially adopted last July, which require food and animal feed to be labelled if they contain at least 0.9 percent of GM ingredients.

Producers and buyers must also store all data about the origin, composition and sale of GM products for a five-year period, which Brussels describes as the toughest GM food regulations anywhere in the world.

The measures will apply to the 16 types of GM products currently allowed inside the EU, and to the nine which are currently awaiting approval.

Advocates of GM foods argue that modifications to genes promoting, for example, resistance to certain pests, could greatly increase yields and alleviate global hunger.

Opponents meanwhile say the technology is being pushed forwards by big corporations without sufficient understanding of how GM plants might affect the rest of the environment.

TERRA.WIRE