www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

The company that created the experimental variety of genetically engineered
rice found this summer to have contaminated the U.S. rice supply contends
that rice farmers and an "act of God" are to blame for the inadvertent
release of the unapproved crop, November 2006 by Rick Weiss, The Washington
Post.

Those are among the assertions by Bayer CropScience of Research Triangle
Park, N.C., in response to a class-action lawsuit filed by hundreds of
farmers in Arkansas and Missouri.

The 30-page response offers the first clue to how the company plans to
defend itself against the 15 class-action lawsuits filed by farmers, who
allege that they stand to lose millions of dollars because of the
contamination.

Lawyers for the farmers said they had expected the company to deny
responsibility, but were offended by its attempt to blame farmers. The
lawyers said their clients had no reason to suspect that the seeds they were
planting in recent years were contaminated by Bayer's unapproved variety.

"The farmers are innocent victims," said Don Downing, a principal at Gray,
Ritter & Graham PC, the St. Louis firm that filed the largest suit, in U.S.
District Court in eastern Missouri.

Denying any culpability, the Bayer response variously blames the escape of
its gene-altered variety of long-grain race, LL601, on "unavoidable
circumstances which could not have been prevented by anyone"; "an act of
God"; and farmers' "own negligence, carelessness, and/or comparative fault."

Asked how farmers were at fault, Bayer spokesman Greg Coffey said the
company does not comment on pending litigation.

Bayer conducted field tests of LL601 from 1999 to 2001 in Louisiana, then
dropped the project without seeking government approval to market it. This
year, LL601 was found to be widespread in U.S. long-grain rice, prompting
Europe to cut off imports and throwing the rice futures market into turmoil.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is investigating how the variety escaped
from test plots into farmers' fields, where it was quietly amplified for
years until its discovery. The seeds and plants of LL601 look virtually
identical to those of the popular conventional variety with which they had
become mixed, said Steve Linscombe, director of Louisiana State University's
rice research station in Crowley.

The day the contamination was announced in August, Bayer asked the
government to approve the variety. A decision is still pending. Meanwhile,
lawsuits have been filed on behalf of about 300 rice farmers in the South.

The company's response to the largest of those suits asserts that Bayer's
test plots were in full compliance with Agriculture Department rules.
Critics of U.S. biotech regulations have said that, if true, that only
proves the inadequacy of those rules and calls into question whether the
department can fairly investigate the problem.

"It is unfortunate that Bayer, rather than accept responsibility for its
actions, is instead trying to pin the blame on the American rice farmers,
the very people most detrimentally affected by Bayer's conduct here," said
Adam Levitt, a Chicago lawyer who has filed five class-action suits for rice
farmers.

www.checkbiotech.org

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