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

The U.S. government gave approval on Wednesday for a biotech company to
plant rice genetically modified to produce human proteins in Kansas by Lisa
Haarlander .
Ventria Bioscience of Sacramento, California, can now grow up to 3,200 acres
of genetically modified rice in Geary County, Kansas, to produce proteins
that would be used in medicine to treat diarrhea.

Ventria plans to grow the rice on only 250 acres, said company president
Scott Deeter.

"We have grown it for nine years in North Carolina, California and South
America as well," he said.

The approval by the Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service (APHIS) fuels concerns that another GMO crop will
contaminate the U.S. food and feed supply.

Last summer, a genetically modified strain of long-grain rice made by Bayer
CropScience, a unit of Bayer AG, which had not been cleared for food use,
was found in commercial rice bins in Arkansas and Missouri. Several
countries, including the European Union, have sharply cut back on U.S. rice
purchases following the discovery. USDA has since found LibertyLink safe for
food and feed use.

"The U.S. rice industry is still reeling from the release of Bayer
CropScience's genetically engineered LibertyLink rice into U.S. Delta-region
rice fields," USA Rice Producers' Group Chairman Paul 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."

APHIS received more than 20,000 comments on Ventria's application, with only
29 groups or individuals supporting the planting of the GMO rice in Kansas.

USDA has a stringent protocol for overseeing genetically modified crops with
those made to produce pharmaceuticals regulated by more field inspections
and greater distances from traditional food crops, among other requirements.

There is no commercial rice production within 300 miles of Geary County,
APHIS said.

"We don't produce this in an area that produces rice," Deeter said. "It's an
entirely different production system. We wouldn't have the situation that
LibertyLink had."

[uk.reuters.com]