Emerson Poynter LLP, a national law firm with offices in Little Rock, Arkansas and Houston, Texas, announced today that it filed a class action lawsuit yesterday in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Western Division (Case No. 4-06-CV-01078) on behalf of all rice farmers in the United States.  This lawsuit seeks damages on behalf of a class of farmers who have suffered from the depression of rice prices due to the contamination of the US rice supply with genetically engineered rice that is not approved for human consumption.  The complaint charges Bayer CropScience US, Bayer CropScience LP, and Aventis CropScience USA, Inc with negligence insomuch as they had duty not to contaminate the nation’s rice supply with unapproved genetically engineered rice and that they breached that duty.  A copy of the complaint can be found at (http://www.emersonpoynter.com/resources/rice.pdf).  All are subsidiaries of Bayer Aktiengesellschaft (NYSE:  BAY).

The complaint alleges that in mid-August 2006, it became public knowledge that our nation’s rice crop had been contaminated with unapproved genetically engineered Bayer CropScience rice as trace amounts were found in commercial rice supplies in Arkansas and Missouri.  More than 100 varieties of rice are commercially produced in primarily six states in the U.S. (AR, TX, LA, MS, MO, and CA) and it is estimated that the 2006 crop year would be valued at $1.88 billion with approximately half being exported.  In 2005, 80% of the rice exported was the long-grain variety…the type that has been contaminated.  Japan has banned all US long-grained rice imports and the European Union (“EU”) has said that all US long-grain rice will have to be tested by an accredited laboratory using a validated testing method and accompanied by a certificate before entering any of the member countries of the EU.

Emerson Poynter LLP is a national law firm with offices in Little Rock, AR and Houston, TX.