The agriculture ministry purchased 89,579 tonnes of Western White on Thursday, an official with the ministry's trade division said.

The suspension on some imports of US wheat was imposed in late May as Japan cancelled a bid for 25,000 tonnes of Western White, a soft white wheat produced in the Pacific Northwest.

Japan imports about 800,000 tonnes of that wheat brand a year, but does not allow genetically-modified wheat.

In all, Japan imports around five million tonnes of wheat a year, 60 percent of which is from the United States, making it one of the largest importers of the crop.

Farm Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said earlier that ban would be lifted on condition that all incoming US wheat be tested.

The Japanese suspension came as South Korea also followed suit, while the European Union told its member states to test imports from the area, saying any genetically modified wheat would not be sold to consumers.

South Korea lifted the ban a month ago after the local food safety regulator found no unapproved genetically modified grain in recent US shipments to the Asian country.

The US Agriculture Department initially announced the discovery of the modified wheat. No genetically engineered wheat has been approved in the United States for commercial production.

The US department said it was the same breed as a genetically modified herbicide-resistant wheat tested by seed giant Monsanto between 1998 and 2005, but never approved.

Altering the wheat allows it to survive when a popular weed killer made by Monsanto, called Roundup, is sprayed on fields.

Hollande says France to keep ban on growing Monsanto GM corn to continue
Marcillac-Saint-Quentin, France (AFP) Aug 02, 2013 - French President Francois Hollande said Friday that a ban on growing GM corn sold by US giant Monsanto would remain in place, despite a court ruling reversing the suspension.

"The moratorium will be extended," he said on a visit to the southwestern department of Dordogne.

France's Council of State court ruled Thursday that the French moratorium imposed on growing MON810 corn since March 2012 failed to uphold European Union law.

Under EU rules, such a ban "can only be taken by a member state in case of an emergency or if a situation poses a major risk" to people, animals or the environment, it said.

But Hollande said the ban on GM crops was in place "not because we refuse progress, but in the name of progress."

"We cannot accept that a product -- corn -- have bad consequences on other produce," he added, stressing that it would however be necessary to "secure this decision legally, at a national level and especially at a European level."

MON810 includes an inserted gene that makes the corn plant exude a natural toxin that is poisonous to insect pests. This offers a potential financial gain for farmers, as they do not have to use chemical pesticides.

Green groups say that GM crops are potentially dangerous and should be outlawed as a precaution.

Greenpeace says MON810 encourages the emergence of pesticide-resistant insects, and has questioned whether the toxin affects bees, which are rapidly declining in Europe.

Scientists, though, have generally found no major problems with the first generation of GM crops, of which MON810 is one.

It has been okayed for farmers in many big grain-growing countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil and China, but has run headlong into problems in Europe.

Brussels cleared MON810 in 1998 for 10 years and Monsanto submitted a request in 2007 for it to be extended but the process has been effectively frozen since then.