Washington, DC
May 16, 2007
The USA Rice Federation today expressed its disappointment
with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s
Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service (APHIS) approval of the Ventria
Bioscience request to grow rice containing human proteins in
Geary County, Kansas.
“We have concluded that these field releases [for the
genetically engineered rice] will not present a risk of
introducing or disseminating a plant pest,” says a notice
published in today’s edition of the Federal Register. “Based on
the finding of no significant impact, [APHIS] has determined
that an environmental impact statement need not be prepared for
these field releases,” the notice says.
“The USA Rice Federation is disappointed with the APHIS
decision, and hopes Ventria
and regulators will carefully ensure that sound and enforced
protocols will prevent contamination of the commercial rice
supply — an event that would be devastating to the rice
industry,” USA Rice Chairman Al Montna said today.
“The U.S. rice industry is still reeling from the release of
Bayer CropScience’s genetically engineered Liberty Link rice
into U.S. Delta-region rice fields,” USA Rice Producers’ Group
Chairman Paul T. Combs said. “We are living with the effect of
unintended events and consequences. This decision will not
generate any comfort among U.S. commercial rice growers.”
“The subject plants have been genetically engineered, using
techniques of micro-projectile bombardment or disarmed
Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, to express proteins for
recombinant human lactoferrin, lysozyme, or serum albumin,” the
APHIS notice says. USA Rice Federation comments filed on March
29 strongly recommended that APHIS deny Ventria permission to
grow the rice.
Only 29 of the 20,034 comments APHIS received supported
Ventria’s biopharming in Kansas. Excluding two large sets of
“nearly identical” opposition comments, 1,097 comments opposed
Ventria’s proposal.
USA Rice Federation is the national advocate for all segments
of the rice industry, conducting activities to influence
government programs, developing and initiating programs to
increase worldwide demand for U.S. rice, and providing other
services to increase profitability for all industry segments.
RELATED RELEASE
U.S. Federal Register:
Availability of an
environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact
for a proposed field release of rice genetically engineered to
express lactoferrin, lysozyme, or serum albumin |
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