Rice tests show no genetic vestiges
Posted on Thursday, September 27, 2007
Early test results reveal no traces of genetically engineered rice in this year’s U. S. long-grain rice crop, according to the USA Rice Federation.
More than 13 months after the U. S. Department of Agriculture announced that an unapproved, transgenic rice had been detected in U. S. longgrain rice supplies, the industry trade group on Wednesday reported preliminary findings about this year’s crop.
“We’ve taken a lot of actions as an industry to restore our competitiveness and marketability of long-grain rice, and we’re beginning to see some positive results,” said Senior Vice President Bob Cummings. “We’re getting some very positive and favorable results from our testing of the 2007 longgrain crop,” he said.
The federation has estimated that about 50 percent of all U. S. long-grain rice exports were negatively affected as a result of contamination by several Bayer CropScience LibertyLink varieties. “That ranges from the Europeans, where we lost that market [of 275, 000-300, 000 tons annually ], to countries like Iraq or Japan, where we’re having to test, which incurs additional expenses,” Cummings said.
Test results thus far from Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas indicate that mandatory seedtesting programs have been effective in purging LibertyLink traits from this year’s longgrain rice crop, Cummings said. Arkansas took the lead by banning the 2007 planting of two rice varieties that had tested positive for the “adventitious presence,” or unintentional commingling, of trace amounts of the protein that makes LibertyLink rice varieties resistant to the herbicide Liberty, also known as glufosinate.
As of Sunday, an estimated 58 percent of Arkansas’ rice crop had been harvested, according to USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. The state is expected to harvest 1, 325, 000 acres of rice this year, approximately 89 percent of it long-grain and 11 percent medium-grain.
Rice was Arkansas’ most valuable crop in 2006, worth $ 892 million. The state produces almost half of all U. S. rice, and about half of all U. S. rice is exported.
Almost all U. S. long-grain rice is produced in five Southern states — Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas — while California produces almost exclusively medium- and short-grain rice.
Testing results like those announced Wednesday should help the United States resume exports of long-grain rice to the 27 member nations of the European Union, which shun genetically engineered food, Cummings said.
“We were just over in Europe last week, talking to the Europeans about our efforts to meet their regulatory requirements and to meet the demands of their consumers for rice that does not contain LibertyLink traits, and we think we’re making progress there,” he said.
But Al Montna, USA Rice Federation chairman and a California rice producer, expressed frustration with the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which has yet to release a comprehensive investigative report explaining how traces of an unapproved transgenic long-grain rice entered commercial grain supplies.
“The European community continually requests this information,” Montna said. “We need the results of this investigation right away, because the European community’s meeting Oct. 10 to open Europe for U. S. rice, most of which comes from Arkansas,” he said.
Some progress has been made in other export markets, Cummings said.
On Sept. 21, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced the suspension of its program to monitor U. S. long-grain rice imports for LibertyLink traces, while still encouraging importers to continue testing until the end of the 2007 rice harvest.
The Philippines is seeking rice purchases under the U. S. “Food for Peace” program, Cummings said. “We believe that LibertyLink is not an obstacle,” he said.
Arkansas’ two major rice milling cooperatives — Riceland Foods Inc. and Producers Rice Mill Inc. — “are testing every bit of green rice that comes into their receiving points,” Cummings said.
“The laboratories are issuing certificates to the mills... those certificates are being forwarded to the rice federation, and we’re collating that information,” Cummings said. “As of earlier this week, we had gotten test results on about 960, 000 metric tons of green rice... and all of those test results are coming back negative, that is, showing no presence of LibertyLink,” he said. “Our expectation is that that will go on.”
The United States is expected to produce about 6. 3 million metric tons of long-grain rice this year, so the test results to date represent about 15 percent of the anticipated crop.
“We’re confident, particularly when we’re looking at the European market, that we will have tested well above 50 percent, probably above 75 percent, of the rough rice that’s going to eventually make its way to Europe,” Cummings said.
Many smaller mills, like Cormier Rice Milling Co. Inc. in DeWitt, export very little rice, so their testing is far less comprehensive.
“We’re not doing extensive testing,” Cormier plant manager Larry Thompson said, because the mill only exports rice to Canada about four times a year.
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