Calif. Growers Fear Biotech Rice Threat

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/tech/2006/oct/15/101500266.html

Fourth-generation farmer Greg Massa was in the middle of the rice harvest and he was dirty, angry and depressed.

<snip>

So the last thing Massa needed was a biotechnology blunder so disastrous that it prompted the rice industry's biggest export customer - Japan - to prohibit some varieties and threaten to ban all U.S. imports. The European Union is making similar threats because genetically engineered rice continues to turn up on grocery shelves in Europe.

"If that happens, the California industry will evaporate," said Massa as he drove the harvester around his farm about 80 miles north of Sacramento.

<snip>

The U.S. rice harvest is imperiled by the discovery of small amounts of experimental strains of genetically engineered rice in storage facilities holding crops destined for the food supply. Bayer CropScience AG, the German company responsible for the mistake, is still investigating how the experimental rice got into the food supply. Federal officials say the company's signature genetically engineered rice came from storage bins in Arkansas and Missouri, but they don't know where it was grown.

<more>

[populistdriven]

1. people and farmers get the government (and uncontrolled GM) they deserve

We voted in the politicians who relied on the empty promises of corporations to police their own and when whistle blower scientists came forward YEARS ago they were ignored.

Collectively we the people of the US deserve to have our food products banned worldwide. This will be the first of many.

[formercia]

2. The US Govt. will probably buy it

and donate it to the School Lunch Program.

[formercia]

3. or homeless shelters. n/t