Friends of the Earth Helps Missouri Farmers Block Biopharm Rice

By Bill Freese, Research Analyst, Friends of the Earth

Early in 2005, a small, California-based biotech company named Ventria Bioscience came to Missouri, intent on planting 200 acres of its genetically engineered pharmaceutical rice. As the lead author of a comprehensive scientific critique of Ventria’s rice, I knew that the company’s bid to plant in California had been rejected by state officials in 2004. Ventria also planned to relocate its headquarters to Missouri, lured by a state-funded incentive package totaling at least $10 million.

Incredibly, however, neither state leaders nor Ventria had consulted with Missouri rice growers, even though the company planned to grow its biopharm rice in the Bootheel (southeastern Missouri rice country). Outraged farmers like Sonny Martin and Chris Williams of the Missouri Rice Research and Merchandising Council began lobbying the state government and speaking out forcefully against Ventria’s plan. Their concern was that Ventria’s drug-rice could contaminate their crop through cross-pollination, seed dispersal via animal or flooding, or human error. Market rejection of contaminated rice could destroy their livelihoods, and undermine the $100 million Missouri rice industry.

I led Friends of the Earth’s effort to help Missouri farmers fight this threat. Our campaign strategy focused on public education, savvy media work, and outreach to the food industry. In early 2005, I completed a 13-page white paper, “Pharmaceutical Rice in Missouri,” which explained the contamination risk using detailed maps showing the proximity of Ventria’s planned sites to Missouri rice fields, rice drying facilities and rice breeding stations. We also highlighted the food industry’s history of opposition to pharmaceutical crops. This white paper was released with Missouri Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), and distributed to rice farmers, the media and state legislators with the help of farm activists and the local Sierra Club.

We also organized a forum on Ventria and biopharming at the University of Missouri at Columbia. I served on the panel with a Missouri rice grower, a farm advocate, and a public interest scientist.

Friends of the Earth’s research and media work raised the profile of the issue from local newspapers all the way up to important regional and national media. A front-page story in the influential St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Bootheel farmers gain allies in rice war,” first introduced the issue to a larger audience. Delta Farm Press – a leading rice belt farm journal – carried several stories featuring Friends of the Earth’s analysis. Stories by the Associated Press and Reuters were picked up in hundreds of regional papers across the country, making this a national issue. I was also featured in Missouri radio interviews together with farmers and farm advocates.

As part of my outreach to the food industry, I sent the white paper to rice industry trade groups, rice processors and rice-using food companies, including St. Louis beer maker Anheuser-Busch (AB). AB, which purchases more Missouri rice than anyone else, and Riceland Foods, the biggest rice processor in the region, both strongly opposed Ventria’s planned field trial. Like the farmers, they didn’t want their products contaminated with drugs. When it finally became clear to AB that it could not prevail through quiet lobbying, and the issue continued to receive substantial media attention, the beer maker felt compelled to go public with a threat to boycott Missouri rice if Ventria were allowed to proceed. With a threat of this magnitude, even political champions of Ventria’s cause like Missouri Senator Kit Bond and Governor Matt Blunt had to sit down and negotiate in earnest.

In the end, AB offered to drop its boycott threat if the field trial took place at least 120 miles from commercial rice fields. Thankfully, a site could not be found in time for a 2005 planting, and Ventria withdrew its field trial application. Missouri rice farmers applauded the deal, which blocked Ventria’s field trial. Unfortunately, the company was able to obtain USDA’s permission to plant its rice in North Carolina. Ventria is also growing test plots of normal rice in northern Missouri to pave the way for possible pharmaceutical rice plantings in the years to come.

Mixing drugs and food is a foolhardy venture; moreover, biopharm crop companies have failed to produce a single FDA-approved drug. This is an ongoing battle, but Friends of the Earth will continue to fight biopharming, particularly in food crops, to protect public health, the environment, and the interests of America’s farmers.

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