Blocking biotech feed harms farmers -EU farm chief

* Farmers could face feed crunch because of delays

* Farm chief says look at science not emotions

By Bate Felix

BRUSSELS, Oct 15 (Reuters) - The European Union's farm chief urged governments to stop blocking imports of animal feed if it contains only traces of banned genetically modified organisms (GMOs), saying such policies harmed the meat sector.

EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said EU countries should look at scientific evidence rather than emotions, as is now the case, when deciding on authorisations for new biotech products.

"The last thing farmers need now is an increase in feed prices. For some of them, it would be the last straw," Fischer Boel told a GMO panel discussion in Brussels on Thursday.

While the EU has approved a string of GMOs -- mainly maize types -- by default rubberstamps since 2004, it does not permit other GMOs, even in minute amounts, until EU approval for that product is given.

EU animal feed buyers stopped importing U.S. soy after more than 2000,000 tonnes of shipments to Spain and Germany were found to contain traces of Monsanto's (MON.N) MON88017 and Syngenta's (SYNN.VX) MIR604 GM corn.

Fischer Boel warned that worldwide availability of soybean could come under pressure because of drought in South America, low secondary stocks in the United States and increasing demand from China.

"If we let our livestock sector go to the wall, we would simply be in a situation where we import meat from U.S. or South America, fed with GMO feed on which we have absolutely no control. I think that would be the ultimate irony," she added.

SLOW-MOTION TENIS MATCH

Production from animal farming in the European Union was worth nearly 150 billion euros ($223 billion) in 2008, contributing to the agriculture food sector which makes up about 4 percent of GDP in EU member states.

Over the last nine years, the EU has imported over 32 million tonnes of soybeans every year on average, essentially from the United States and South America, Fischer Boel said.

Even though the GM corn from Monsanto and Syngenta have been given the green light by the EU food safety watchdog, the European Food Safety Authority, EU ministers have failed to reach a qualified majority on whether to approve it or not.

"For the farm sector, the imbalance in GMO approval between the European Union and the rest of the world is a clear and present financial threat," Fischer Boel said.

"The political decision is being knocked around like a ball in a slow-motion tennis match," she said, referring to Europe's longstanding GMO deadlock. A minority of biotech-sceptic states always manages to prevent a majority consensus, under the EU's complex weighted voting system, from securing new approvals.

The issue will be back on the ministers' agenda on Oct. 19 when they meet in Luxembourg, and it is expected that they will again fail to reach a majority for or against the authorisation, leaving it to the EU executive to make a final decision. (Reporting by Bate Felix, editing by Anthony Barker)