More farmers sue over release of altered rice

~ The unapproved rice somehow escaped test plots and made it into the food supply.

More than 200 Missouri and Arkansas rice farmers have joined forces to sue Bayer Cropscience over the release of a genetically altered rice variety into the food supply.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in St. Louis, brings together 229 farmers who will harvest more than 125,000 acres of rice this year. The lawsuit charges that the North Carolina-based agricultural company failed to control field tests of a variety designed to resist a Bayer-produced herbicide.

The lawsuit will seek to discover how the rice variety, which has not been approved for crop production, escaped test plots, said Don Downing, a St. Louis attorney with Gray, Ritter and Graham.

"This is a catastrophe for Missouri rice farmers," Downing said. "To the extent that Missouri and Arkansas rice farmers lost money, we intend to hold Bayer accountable."

Bayer has maintained that the rice poses no threat to health, is similar to varieties that have been approved for crop use and promised to cooperate with investigations by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The lawsuit is the second filed in Missouri and the sixth filed nationwide against Bayer. After the modified rice was discovered in shipments to overseas purchasers from Riceland, a farmer cooperative, Japan suspended imports of U.S. long-grain rice and the European Union started requiring expensive testing of every shipment.

Bayer has declined to comment on any of the lawsuits.

Prices farmers can expect for their rice dropped more than $1 per 100 pounds after discovery of the modified rice in late August.

The lawsuit seeks to recover both the lost income from rice sales due to lower prices and any expenses farmers incur to test their rice to certify it as free from any of the modified strain of rice, Downing said.

Missouri is one of the smaller rice producing states. U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates indicate Missouri farmers expect to harvest about 1.5 billion pounds of rice this year.

The harvest is underway now in southern areas of the rice-growing region, which extends along the Mississippi River to Louisiana and into Texas.

The lawsuit mirrors one filed last week by Cape Girardeau attorney Michael Ponder on behalf of three area farmers. Downing said his lawsuit seeks compensation under 11 different Missouri laws.

The lawsuit also seeks to discover how extensive the release of modified rice has become.

"We don't know which farmers have contaminated crops and which ones don't," Downing said. "It will require segregation of the crops and that will cost a lot of money."

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126