The price of a curry will rise from December due to “disastrous” new EU import restrictions on rice, politicians have warned.

The EU Commission has ordered basmati manufacturers to slash levels of the pesticide Tricyclazole to a hundredth of its current legal level, despite being told it is impossible to do so sustainably in less than three years.

The compound has been used by Indian farmers, who produce roughly 60 per cent of the world’s basmati, to protect against rice blast disease for the last 30 years.

Current EU restrictions limiting traces to 1 mg/kg were already considered conservative compared to Japanese and US import limits of 3 mg/kg.

But in June the Commission ruled traces must be all but eradicated from December.

The Indian Government has said it would take producers at least three harvests over three years to effectively modify their crops, and that the abrupt change of rules will hand a monopoly to Pakistan, where the pesticide is not used.