Associated Press
07-18-06
Kansas wooing biotech rice firm
The Joplin Globe
The Associated Press
WICHITA, Kan. - A biotechnology firm that abandoned plans to grow biotech rice
in California and Missouri amid protests by farmers and others in those states is
now being courted by Kansas.
Ventria Bioscience, a small Sacramento, Calif.-based firm, expects to decide in
about a month whether it will relocate its processing plant and rice acreage to
Kansas, said Ventria president Scott Deeter.
Biopharming is the practice of growing food crops genetically engineered with
human genes to produce drugs. Ventria's rice is used to make an experimental
U.S. drug to treat diarrhea.
"We are in the process of expanding our production - and Kansas is on the short
list for that expansion," Deeter said. "We haven't made a decision yet, but we are
coming very close."
The other state on its short list is North Carolina, where the firm already grows
335 acres of its genetically modified rice, he said.
Leading efforts to lure Ventria here is Kansas Secretary of Agriculture Adrian
Polansky and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. Polansky first learned of the biotech
opportunity after meeting Deeter six months ago at an international
biotechnology meeting in Chicago.
Since then, economic development officials from several northeast Kansas
communities have been quietly building support among the state's major farm
organizations while putting together economic incentive packages to lure Ventria.
"We don't often get opportunities that are very beneficial to production
agriculture, to our communities in Kansas and also tie to real benefits in this case
to providing health care at a lower cost," Polansky said. "To me, it is a very
exciting opportunity."
Some scientists aren't so sure, and fear the technology could threaten the safety
of conventional food crops by inadvertently mixing with them. While it may be an
advantage to grow pharmaceutical rice in a state like Kansas with no commercial
rice production, it's still a "bad idea" to produce pharmaceutical compounds in
food, said Jane Rissler, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"This is not agricultural production - this is drug production," Rissler said. "This is
pharmaceutical production and pharmaceutical production in food plants should
be discouraged."
Ventria hopes to eventually grow 30,000 acres of rice in the state, possibly in five
to six years, Polansky said. It would guarantee Kansas growers a profit of
between $150 and $200 per acre above their current best economic crop. That
would be $6 million a year of added income to Kansas farmers, Polansky said.
"It is an opportunity to grow a different crop that is a little more profitable than
what we have been growing," said Steve Baccus, an Ottawa County farmer and
president of the Kansas Farm Bureau. "We don't grow rice, but agronomically
they tell us there is no reason we can't grow it here. It has just never been done."
Ventria would bring its research and processing facility to the state, creating
significant paying jobs, Polansky said.
Rissler is skeptical, and cited a report last year from Robert Wisner, an
economics professor at Iowa State University, that concluded that market
forces will drive down farmer compensation. It said the acreage needed for
bioengineered crops is so small, only a few farms would benefit.