Biotech firm wants to grow rice for medicinal supplements

A small company's bid to greatly expand its genetically engineered rice operation has brought the international debate over biotechnology home to California farmers, who largely have avoided the issue directly in recent years.

Ventria Bioscience of Sacramento is pushing hard to gain government approval to expand its planting of rice engineered with human DNA to produce medicine in time for this year's growing season, which is getting underway in a matter of weeks.

Within two years, Ventria hopes to have the first marketing approval to grow rice that produces over-the-counter treatments for iron deficiencies, diarrhea and other ailments.

The company's timeline could be hampered if it doesn't receive the necessary state and federal approvals to expand its operations in the next few weeks. Even the company conceded U.S. Department of Agriculture approval in time is a long shot. California regulators also need to approve the plan.

Nonetheless, Ventria's bid to plant more than 100 acres of the genetically modified rice this year and thousands more in coming years has touched off widespread disagreement over biotechnology in the normally insular California rice industry.

Though some California growers already tend to federally approved fields of genetically engineered cotton and, to a far lesser extent, modified corn and soy, the state's farmers have in recent years largely avoided the controversy surrounding biotechnology's use in the Midwest.

Voters in rural Mendocino County last month did vote to ban biotechnology from its borders. But the ballot measure had little practical effect, because no biotech crops are grown in the county. (Related story: Voters in Mendocino ban gen-mod plants and animals)

Instead, Ventria's application to expand beyond the 100 acres of experimental rice it has been permitted to grow since 1997 has caused a widespread stir over biotechnology among California farmers and consumers not seen since the genetically engineered tomato Flavr Savr was approved for sale in 1994. The tomato was taken off the market three years later after it ran into production and shipping problems.

Last week, a sharply divided subcommittee of the California Rice Commission voted to support Ventria's application to expand. The application now is pending before the California Department of Food and Agriculture, which also needs to approve the company's plans and is expected to rule soon.

The 6-5 vote came only after months of debate among rice farmers, many of whom fear losing European and Asian customers concerned about the biotech rice accidentally mixing with conventional crops.

"We have some wonderful Japanese customers and their concerns and their confidence is extremely important to us," said Butte County rice grower Bryce Lundberg. "We should listen to the Asia market."

Many European and Japanese consumers are mistrustful of genetically engineered crops and other changes to their food supply because of government mishandling of mad cow disease in the past.

Further, some growers in California's $500 million-a-year rice industry are afraid that a Ventria mistake could harm their business if biotech rice somehow finds its way into their conventional crops.

Previous biotechnology mistakes like the Starlink controversy in 2000, when a biotech corn not approved for human consumption was accidentally mixed with other crops, triggered food recalls and caused a worldwide drop in corn prices.

Last year the USDA fined ProdiGene Inc. of College Station, Texas, some $250,000 for failing to completely remove corn genetically engineered to produce a pig vaccine before growing soybeans.

Ventria and the head of the rice commission said there's little chance of the company's engineered rice mixing with conventional crops. The company has agreed to grow its rice in an undisclosed Southern California location, at least 100 miles from the nearest rice farm and 300 miles from the center of most rice production north of Sacramento.

Nearly all the state's 500,000 acres of rice fields are in Northern California. Further, rice is "self pollinating" and the chances of animals, insects and wind mixing biotech varieties with conventional crops is slim, Ventria's CEO Scott Deeter said.

"We have multiple safeguards," Deeter said.

Deeter said growing medicines in plants like Ventria intends could help cut the cost of drug manufacturing.

Rice commission chief Tim Johnson said he believes the overseas markets won't be affected by Ventria's expansion plans. He said California rice farmers already adhere to strict guidelines addressing pesticide use that are respected by international customers and that is not expected to change because of Ventria's plans.

"The concerns are high," Johnson said. "But at the end of the day, those concerns won't be realized.


By Paul Elias, Associated Press,
http://www.usatoday.com