Bayer testing 2nd modified rice in state
Posted on Tuesday, June 19, 2007
The company whose genetically engineered rice is at the center of an ongoing government investigation — and has disrupted U. S. rice exports — has been quietly testing another transgenic variety in Arkansas.
This spring, Bayer Crop-Science planted four 0. 2-acre plots of LLRICE 62 near Proctor, Newport, Stuttgart and Tillar, according to the state Plant Board.
Greg Yielding, executive director of the Arkansas Rice Growers Association, said Monday that his group requested information last week from the board under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act after hearing rumors about Bayer’s current testing.
“We want to know exactly where [the fields ] are, who owns the land and what farmers abut the land — those people have a right to know this,” Yielding said.
In 2005, the association spearheaded efforts to prevent Ventria Bioscience from planting rice in Arkansas that had been genetically engineered to produce human proteins. The Rice Certification Act was one result of those efforts. Act 1238 of 2005 specifically exempts any rice plot used for research “conducted by federal, state, or private entities” from special scrutiny by the Plant Board for “characteristics of commercial impact.” Yielding said the exemption was included at the request of Stuttgart-based Riceland Foods Inc., the country’s largest rice miller and marketer.
Riceland spokesman Bill Reed said Monday that he could not comment on the matter because of pending contamination litigation that names Riceland as a defendant.
Yielding said, “As it is right now, Ventria can come in here and plant rice... as long as they follow the federal protocols and get a permit.” Earlier this year, Ventria received permits to conduct field tests of its pharmaceutical rice in Kansas.
“Go to Kansas,” was Paul Byrd’s message for Bayer Crop-Science, a subsidiary of Germany-based Bayer AG, a multinational chemical and health-care corporation, whose list of products includes Bayer aspirin and Alka-Seltzer.
Byrd, Little Rock managing counsel for Birmingham, Ala.-based Hare, Wynn, Newell and Newton LLP, filed one of the first contamination lawsuits by Arkansas farmers, seeking damages from both Bayer and Riceland Foods. On Aug. 18, the U. S. Department of Agriculture announced that traces of Bayer’s LLRICE 601 had been found in U. S. longgrain rice supplies. Since that revelation, sales in nearly half of all U. S. rice export markets have been harmed, resulting in everything from required testing to the complete cessation of trade, according to the USA Rice Federation.
Arkansas produces about half of all the rice grown in the United States. The country exports about half of its production. The state harvested $ 892 million worth of the grain in 2006.
Although the USDA has promised a full report on the circumstances surrounding the contamination, it has yet to release any information. USDA spokesman Rachel Iadicicco said she “had no timeline” for when the report would be issued.
Mark Waldrip, who represents farmers on the state Plant Board, said, “Arkansas rice farmers have already been damaged so much by what has gone on with contamination issues.” Farmers were prohibited this year from planting two popular rice varieties — Cheniere and Clearfield 131 — in an effort to halt further contamination. Farmers and millers also have been requested to thoroughly clean all of their rice-handling equipment.
“Most of the rice farmers in this state are already a party to one lawsuit or another,” Waldrip said. “I think we owe it to them to minimize any possibility of exposure.” Waldrip was referring to the hundreds of lawsuits that have been filed since Aug. 18 regarding the contamination, most by rice farmers, some by rice buyers and at least one by seed dealers.
Adam Levitt, a partner in the Chicago office of Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP, serves as co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs in those cases, which are being consolidated in U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. Bayer “continues to put American rice farmers at risk,” Levitt said, without explaining what went wrong with LLRICE 601 “and what steps they’ve taken to change their oversight, supervision, management and protection of the U. S. rice supply in their testing of Liberty Link rice varieties.” Bayer’s Liberty Link rice varieties feature a protein that makes them resistant to the herbicide Liberty, also known as glufosinate. LLRICE 601 and LLRICE 62 are different cases, according to Bayer, because LLRICE 62 was “deregulated” or approved for commercialization in the United States in 1999. LLRICE 601 was deregulated in October, after the contamination had been made public.
“LLRICE 62 has been determined safe for human food use by [Food and Drug Administration ] and USDA,” said Greg Coffey, a spokesman for Bayer CropScience based in Research Park Triangle, N. C.
“And, although it’s deregulated, we’re voluntarily conducting these trials in adherence to USDA’s guidelines for regulated rice,” he said.
Coffey said the LLRICE 62 test plots are small, will be harvested by hand and are under the control of private-contract research farms “experienced in biotech trials,” where no seed production takes place.
Plant Board Director Darryl Little says the current tests do differ significantly from last year’s research, which took place in a seed breeding program.
“If you have a mistake in a breeding program and end up with the trait in your breeding program, when you release that seed it’s going to spread from one end of the Rice Belt to the other, like what we had last year,” Little said.
Any potential problem this year would result in “a very minute amount that’s going to the mill,” he said.
Little confirmed that his agency plans to visit Bayer’s test plots this week. The exact locations of the fields will remain confidential because of concerns that they might be sabotaged, he said.
Arkansas Agriculture Secretary Richard Bell said the current testing is less worrisome because the Plant Board will have some oversight.
“I think the Plant Board will be able to handle it and I don’t think it’s a big risk,” he said.
Bill Freese, a science policy analyst with the Washington, D. C.-based Center for Food Safety, said he was surprised by news of the testing.
“After all that’s happened, it’s unbelievable that the state would give Bayer another chance to contaminate Arkansas rice,” Freese said.
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