USDA report: Rice tainting a mystery

Arkansas Democrat Gazette
BY NANCY COLE
Posted on Saturday, October 6, 2007
Original Article Here
Download Report Here (pdf)

More than 14 months after the U. S. Department of Agriculture began investigating how traces of an unapproved genetically engineered rice entered the U. S. commercial long-grain rice supply, the government has concluded that it cannot explain how the contamination occurred and has no plans to take any enforcement actions.

Cindy Smith, the administrator of USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said Friday that the agency is considering some changes, including a requirement for better record keeping by researchers and developers.

That was hardly enough to satisfy the industry, members of which roundly condemned the effort.

“Once again USDA has let the American farmer down,” said Ray Vester, a Stuttgart rice farmer who served on the State Plant Board last winter when the agency banned the planting this year of the two rice varieties — Cheniere and Clearfield 131 — that tested positive for trace amounts of the protein that makes Bayer CropScience’s LibertyLink rice resistant to the herbicide Liberty, also known as glufosinate.

“They didn’t have the protocols in place to keep this from happening or to find out how it happened,” Vester said.

“It appears to me they just whitewashed over [the problem ] and went on,” he said.

“They spent all these months trying to find reasons not to blame anybody or make a decision, and I think that’s what they accomplished,” Vester said.

Darryl Little, director of the State Plant Board, said, “They really didn’t tell us a whole lot.”

Preventing future transgenic contamination is the most important point to keep in mind, said Kenneth Graves, president of the Arkansas Rice Growers Association.

“We obviously need more stringent regulations with some tough penalties and accountability,” Graves said.

Both U. S. rice industry trade groups, USA Rice Federation in Washington and US Rice Producers Association in Houston, Texas, expressed disappointment with the results of the USDA investigation.

Although the USDA and the Food and Drug Administration have said that Bayer Crop- Science’s LibertyLink rices pose no health, food safety or environmental risks, many foreign countries shun all genetically engineered foods.

Because about half of all U. S. rice is exported, news last year of the contamination negatively affected almost half of all U. S. rice export markets. U. S. rice sales to the 27 member nations of the European Union have nearly halted, while increased testing of U. S. rice shipments has been required elsewhere.

The fallout from the LibertyLink problem has been particularly acute in Arkansas. The state’s farmers produce about half of all U. S. rice. In 2006, Arkansas’ rice harvest was worth $ 892 million, making it the state’s single most valuable crop.

Friday’s report “underscores the extreme importance to us here in Arkansas of keeping our right to further regulate something that is as potentially damaging to our No. 1 cash crop,” said John Alter, a DeWitt rice farmer and member of the Arkansas Rice Research and Promotion Board.

The State Plant Board and the USA Rice Federation took leading roles in trying to restore the competitiveness and marketability of U. S. long-grain rice in export markets around the world, particularly the European Union. The Plant Board banned the 2007 planting of the two rice varieties — Cheniere and Clearfield 131.

USA Rice Federation said in a prepared statement that the lack of significant findings indicates the need for increased corporate responsibility and stewardship by the biotechnology industry.

“Imagine if we had waited for the [Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service ] report before taking decisive action,” USA Rice Federation Chairman Al Montna said.

USA Rice Federation said last week that a comprehensive investigative report by the USDA was essential for the U. S. rice industry to be able to renew exports to the European Union.

Smith said Rebecca Bech, deputy administrator for biotechnology regulatory services, was in Brussels on Friday “briefing representatives from the European Commission about the investigation and what we learned.”

US Rice Producers said in a prepared statement that it lamented that “current recordkeeping and related regulatory requirements did not provide investigators the tools they needed to reconstruct the complete picture of what caused this expensive episode. “ But most of all, we are concerned about the lack of corporate responsibility demonstrated by certain industry players throughout this entire episode. Their irresponsibility and determination to avoid any liability for their actions has — and continues to — cost U. S. rice farmers hundreds of millions of dollars,” the association said.

INVESTIGATION RESULTS Smith said the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s 8, 500-hour investigation, which began Aug. 1, 2006, determined that the Cheniere rice variety had been contaminated by only LibertyLink 601 or LLRICE 601, while Clearfield 131 had been contaminated by only LLRICE 604. “We had hoped to identify how each [genetically engineered ] rice line entered the commercial rice supply, but the exact mechanism for introduction could not be determined in either instance,” she said.

The one common denominator in both cases was Louisiana State University AgCenter’s Rice Research Station near Crowley, Smith said. From 1999 to 2001, LLRICE 601 and Cheniere were both grown at the same time at the LSU station, “which was working under a Bayer Crop-Science contract,” she said. In addition, LLRICE 604 and Clearfield 131 were also grown at the station, but they were not grown at the same time.

“This means... that the most likely entry point for LLRICE 604 into Clearfield 131 was through a means other than direct cross-pollination,” leaving only mixing or other means, Smith said.

Ruling out cross-pollination as the source of the contamination in the case of Clearfield 131 the only real news in the report, said Little, the Plant Board director.

More information is available at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s Web site — www. aphis. usda. gov — where two documents are posted. One is an eight-page document, “Report of LibertyLink Rice Incidents,” the other is a four-page document, “Lessons learned and revisions under consideration for APHIS ’ Biotechnology Framework.”