BASF seeking EU green light for new potato: chairman

German chemical giant BASF said Tuesday it was seeking European Union approval for a new genetically modified potato six months after getting an EU green light for its Amflora spud.

"We applied for approval for our next starch potato, Amadea, in Brussels yesterday," BASF chairman Juergen Hambrecht said in a statement.

BASF hopes to market Amadea, which it called a "high performing starch potato," by 2013 or 2014 after obtaining the necessary authorisations, and use it to replace a first generation product that stirred considerable controversy.

The European Commission only gave its approval for Amflora in March, the first time it allowed a genetically modified product to be distributed in Europe in 12 years.

Meanwhile, BASF is working on yet another form of potato that would resist the blight that ravaged Irish crops in the mid 19th century, a spokeswoman told AFP.

Dubbed Fortuna and the first BASF potato designed for human consumption, it is based on a European potato that includes South American genes.

BASF hopes to apply for EU approval by mid 2011, the spokeswoman added.

(c) 2010 AFP