EXTRACT: "If you talk to the folks who are really up to speed on sampling and testing... they'll always say that where we are today we will never get a GE-free statement that's valid. The traits are in the system, you cannot guarantee statistically that you'll ever get rid of them."
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Rice farmers biggest losers over altered rice, exec says
BY NANCY COLE Arkansas Democrat Gazette, November 4 2006 http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/171621/

Roughly 40 percent of U. S. rice exports have been negatively affected by what many experts consider to be their industry's worst crisis, a USA Rice Federation official said Friday.

Speaking in Little Rock to the Arkansas Rice Research and Promotion Board, federation Vice President Bob Cummings discussed the damage caused to the $ 1. 3 billion U. S. rice export market after the U. S. Department of Agriculture's August revelation that traces of an unapproved, genetically engineered rice had been discovered in U. S. longgrain rice supplies.

Keith Glover, president and chief executive officer of Producers Rice Mill Inc. in Stuttgart, said at the meeting that farmers have been some of the biggest losers in this case.

"There's no doubt in my mind you'd be looking at 40 to 50 cents a bushel more for rice today than what it is... and when you look at 210 million bushels in Arkansas, you're talking about an $ 80 [million ] to $ 100 million hit," Glover said.

Cummings, who oversees international trade policy for the industry group based near Washington, D. C., said the federation is "not opposed to genetic engineering of rice, because it holds some real benefits to growers."

"However, you need to be able to sell the product that you grow, and you need to make sure that consumers are ready for it and that the U. S. and foreign countries have granted regulatory approval," he said.

Cummings described the federation's draft plan, developed earlier this week in Dallas by a group of 50-60 rice-industry experts, which is intended to "flush genetically engineered rice out of the long-grain system starting with the 2007 crop."

Board members, most of whom are rice farmers, acknowledged the importance of acting swiftly.

"We've got to do something or we're going to have a crop that we can't sell," said board member Marvin Hare, who farms rice near Newport.

Everyone in the rice industry has been bloodied by the loss in export market share, but none more so than farmers, Glover said.

"It's a mess, and the quicker we can clean it up, the faster you guys are going to get the premiums you have developed in the marketplace," he told board members.

The problem is of particular concern in Arkansas because the state produces roughly half of all the rice grown in the United States, and about half of all U. S. rice is exported.

Rice is Arkansas' single most valuable row crop, worth $ 810 million in 2005.

Since mid-August, more than 25 federal lawsuits have been filed by farmers seeking damage payments from Bayer Crop-Science, whose experimental LLRICE 601 is at the center of the controversy.

Stuttgart-based Riceland Foods Inc. also has been named in two of the lawsuits, which criticize how the cooperative has handled its investigation of the problem since January and allege negligence and fraudulent concealment.

The USDA, which announced discovery of the unapproved rice on Aug. 18, and the Food and Drug Administration have said that no health, food safety or environmental concerns are associated with LLRICE 601 and that "the domestic market is steady to date," Cummings said.

But the picture is far more bleak in export markets.

Trade with the 25-nation European Union, an $ 87 million market in 2005, has stopped because of the problem.

Other countries have banned U. S. rice imports, and many are requiring testing to prove that U. S. rice shipments are essentially free of material associated with LLRICE 601, Cummings said.

"Roughly 41 percent of our total rice exports have been impacted by this event," he said.

Although the problem involves only long-grain rice - which is produced primarily in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas - some markets that buy medium- and short-grain rice, produced primarily in California, have been affected by it, he said.

The current problem involves not only LLRICE 601 but also two other so-called Liberty Link rice varieties, LLRICE 62 and LLRICE 06, Cummings said.

"Liberty Link 62 has been detected in Europe and there's been some detection in U. S. testing," he said.

All three Liberty Link varieties contain genes that make them resistant to the herbicide Liberty, also known as glufosinate. While Bayer never sought USDA approval to commercialize LLRICE 601, the two other Liberty Link varieties were approved for sale - though Bayer has never marketed them.

The fact that LLRICE 601 has never been approved for sale in any county is significant, Cummings said.

"[The USA Rice Federation is ] supportive of biotechnology for rice, but we're only supportive to the extent that there's regulatory approval here in the United States and in foreign markets, and there’s consumer acceptance," he said.

That policy is behind the draft plan to rid the U. S. longgrain rice system of the Liberty Link varieties, Cummings said.

"We want to provide confidence to customers that their preferences are being met," yet avoid use of the term "GE- or genetically-engineered-free," he said.

"If you talk to the folks who are really up to speed on sampling and testing... they'll always say that where we are today we will never get a GE-free statement that's valid," Cummings said. "The traits are in the system, you cannot guarantee statistically that you'll ever get rid of them."

Instead, the plan calls for seed testing at a level of sensitivity that is close to GE-free, he said.

In data collected from seven U. S. rice exporters, USA Rice Federation found that 32 percent of nearly 700 long-grain rice samples - collected between August and October and including everything from unmilled rice to parboiled rice - tested positive for Liberty Link traits.

Several Rice Research and Promotion Board members noted that the 31 percent rate of positive test results for Arkansas was almost three times the share of Cheniere variety rice that was planted in the state.

Cheniere, a rice variety developed by Louisiana State University AgCenter's Rice Research Station near Crowley, La., is the only seed rice that has tested positive for traces of LLRICE 601.

Because only 11 percent to 12 percent of all Arkansas rice acres are planted in Cheniere, Arkansas Agriculture Secretary Richard Bell and state Plant Board Director Darryl Little told a legislative committee last month that the scope of the genetic-engineering problem in the state probably was comparable to that 11 percent to 12 percent.

Cummings said the main points of the USA Rice Federation response plan are simple: Only seed that tests negative for Liberty Link traits at an 0. 01 percent sensitivity level will be planted in 2007. No Cheniere variety rice will be planted in 2007. Mills will buy rice in 2007 only from farmers who provide evidence that their seeds tested negative.

Rice produced from farmsaved seed in 2007 will be purchased only if it tests negative.

Cummings said Chuck Wilson, rice agronomist with the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service, will lead an education campaign that will explain the plan and seek acceptance for it from all interested parties, including farmers, seed dealers, mills, financial institutions and crop insurers.

Who will bear the cost of implementing the plan remains unclear, Cummings said.

"It will cost money," and most of the plan's architects believe Bayer bears some responsibility, he said.

The genetically engineered problem with rice is reminiscent of the December 2003 discovery of mad-cow disease in a Washington state cow. Both events have thrown export markets into disarray.

Although the 2005 U. S. rice export market is only about one-third the size of the 2003 U. S. beef and veal export market, the rice problem is likely to have a much greater impact on Arkansas given the state’s dominant position in the market.

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