Biopharm Rice in Missouri

[JereGettle]

Report on the Battle Over Biopharm Rice in Missouri
>From The Progressive Populist May 15, 2005
http://www.populist.com/05.9.mcmillen.html
Rural Routes/Margot Ford McMillen

FARMERS, CONSUMERS BALK at PHARMA RICE

Missourians are accustomed to being near the bottom on policy issues that
require wisdom and foresight. We're 48th or 49th of the 50 states in
spending on things like clean water, education, health care. Luckily,
there's always Arkansas or Mississippi to keep us out of last place.

So it was a shock to learn a few weeks ago that Missouri spending was number
one when our state ponied up $30 million to bring a future-changing
technology to farmers in the boot heel. We reportedly outspent California,
Arkansas and Louisiana. But, unlike spending on clean water, education or
health care, this technology has no benefits, no usefulness and no allies
except for a few venture capitalists backing Ventria Biosciences, a firm
that wants to raise GMO rice.

Well, there is one other ally. The president of Northwest Missouri State
University, Dean L. Hubbard, who joined Ventria's Board of Directors in
January 2005.

And, right on the heels of spending for Ventria, our state cancelled the fledgling organics program, which cost less than $100,000 per year and which consumers and farmers did want and supported! On the lookout for outrage?
Top that!

The Missouri boot heel is a steamy, swampy ecosystem perfect for rice
production. Ventria proposes to plant 120 acres of pharmaceutical rice in
the midst of it. If the pharma-rice gets into the human food system,
Starlink-style, it could be the end of that industry.

Plant-made-pharmaceuticals, or PMPS, are the new faces in genetic
engineering. Promoters claim that they have found ways by tinkering with the
DNA to transform plants into "bio-factories" that turn out products like
human blood thinner or insulin. Ventria wants to tinker with three PMPs. One
is a gene found in human breast milk, another a gene found in human saliva,
and the third, an artificial blood protein. Sound useful? So far, nobody has
spoken up to buy these products, if indeed the products are ever really
created.

And, to make things more troublesome, these rice plants will be grown near
regular food crops where they can pollinate plants that are purchased by
Riceland or Anheuser-Busch or exported and used for food.

While we don't know a lot about the side effects of genetically engineered
(GE) crops, there are scientific data dating back to 1996 confirming that
allergens can be transferred in genetically-modified crops. In 1999, Arpad
Pusztai of Rowett Laboratories in Aberdeen, Scotland, discovered that
genetically modified potatoes severely damage the immune system and organs
of rats. In a 2001 laboratory experiment in St. Louis, unexpected liver
tumors in mice brought one genetic engineering experiment to an early end.

And those are just the health problems we know about. Since nobody has
completed long-term feeding trials or other experiments, we don't know very
much.

Environmentally, GE crops (also called "transgenic" or "GMO") have been a
disaster. Roundup-Ready (R-R) canola, which carries the trait of resistance
to the planet's most potent and dangerous herbicide, has crossed with
regular canola, creating a super weed. The R-R gene has infected other
plants as well, creating Roundup-Resistant weeds like R-R ragweed.

Bt crops have been genetically modified by adding a gene from a bacteria to
the DNA so that every cell of the plant carries a lethal pesticide. Bt crops
are supposed to kill specific pests, like corn root worm, but Bt crops are
being blamed for poisoning fields and killing monarch butterfly caterpillars
and other harmless creatures.

When Missouri boot heel farmers learned about the plans of Ventria, they
were furious. There are almost 200,000 Missouri acres in rice and most
export partners have refused to buy GMO products because their consumers
don't want them. One producer, who processes rice in his own mill and ships
it overseas in 44,000-pound containers, says the invasion of pharma-rice
into food supplies can come from many directions: human error; seeds carried
by wind, birds or flooding water; or pollination of normal crops by wind.
There has already been contamination of all types in the GE corn and soybean
crops already common in US fields.

During the USDA comment period, which ended March 25, many activists worked
to bring attention to this problem. Kurt Kiebler of Kansas City Food Circle
was the first on my radar screen; he unraveled the snaky relationship
between the swampy boot heel, where rice-growing conditions are excellent,
and Northwest Missouri State University, where it's dry and windy.

As the story developed, Bill Freese of Friends of the Earth came to Columbia
and began conversations with friends and allies. Through his efforts, the
University of Missouri-Columbia law school sponsored a forum with farmers
and experts. By March, Riceland had expressed grave doubts about buying
Missouri rice if the biopharm plan went through. On April 13, Anheuser-Busch
announced that they would not buy rice from states that grow GM rice. The
next day, their stock rose 60 cents.

When I heard the Budweiser announcement, I thought they were reacting to the
April 10 news from the EU that Bt-10 maize (corn) had mistakenly gotten into
European food supplies and the Europeans were angry. Bt-10 maize has been
blamed for contributing to antibiotic-resistance in human diseases and has
not been approved by the EU for import. Probably, I thought, the King of
Beers had heard this, wants to boost its exports and decided to go GMO-free.

Less than a week later, Anheuser-Busch changed their brave stand and said
they'd buy rice if it was grown more than 120 miles from the Ventria site.

What toads.

SayNoToGmos.org has called for a boycott and a phone-in to 1-800-DIAL BUD,
the official Budweiser consumer line.

With those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer just around the corner,
consumers can make the King change its tune.

[Johnny Apple Seed]

I heard about this from Ron Macher[small farm today magazine], in his talk at the spring festival. The more I learn about the GMO problem the more I relaize we need to support Jere and all other heirloom companies and fight this cancer tooth and nail.
Big business, dirty politics, it's all there especially with Bush at the helm.
Self education and involvement are very important, live it daily.

[Gardenurse]

An update on the biopharm facility plans in Maryville, MO. "The development would bring California-based Ventria Bioscience to Maryville to grow rice containing human genes for growing proteins to treat ailments such as diarrhea and dehydration."

http://www.newstribune.com/articles/2005/12/21/news_state/1221050037.txt

A Missouri University Approves Farm to Grow Genetically Altered Medicine Producing Plants

Associated Press | December 21, 2005
By CHRIS BLANK
A board responsible for the financing of state projects gave conditional approval Tuesday for a center at Northwest Missouri State University to grow plants genetically altered to produce medicines.

After deciding not to discuss the issue in November, the Missouri Development Finance Board unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday signaling its intent to support the project.

The resolution states the board believes plant science is important to the state's economy and would support a loan to fund the project after the Legislature passes a resolution affirming its support for the planned research center and the center gets initial approval for a federal grant.

The development would bring California-based Ventria Bioscience to Maryville to grow rice containing human genes for growing proteins to treat ailments such as diarrhea and dehydration. The president of the Maryville campus, Dean Hubbard, joined Ventria's board of directors in January.

Mike Mills, deputy director of the Department of Economic Development, told the board negotiations will continue between the state and Ventria and that the state should avoid monetary commitments until the details had been worked out.

“We want to indicate our support without putting the state on the line until the negotiations are over,” he said.

In the face of continued concern from the Legislature, the university's Board of Regents voted earlier this month to shrink the project by about half, to $12.35 million, by eliminating a proposed academic center. Now the building would house laboratories, offices and a plant that could extract 500 kilograms of protein from the rice. Ventria would also operate a 5,000-kilogram facility at another location in Maryville, which would be run by a farm cooperative and comes with an additional $6 million price tag.

The current plan calls for the university to spend $4 million, the state to put in $6 million and $2.35 million to come from the federal government.

Sen. David Klindt, R-Bethany, said the project was one of the largest economic development efforts in northwest Missouri - even in its truncated form.

“When you get started on something and start moving on it, sometimes you have to scale things back,” he said. “This will give us a place to start growing.”

Mills said the plan would put Missouri at the forefront of the biofarming industry while the locally run processing operation would help ensure a local benefit.

“We get to use venture capital from our farming community to help with the financing, and two, we give our farmers - the producers themselves - potentially a much larger share of the profit to be made,” Mills said.

An assistant to Hubbard said he would not be available for comment on the board's decision.

Ventria President Scott Deeter did not immediately return a call for comment.

[flowerpower]

"... to grow rice containing human genes ..." Sounds very scary.

I am wondering how they are going to keep out the wildlife. Especially birds.

[arianna]

hmmmm I think I am the 155 th person to read this thread and only the 4th to reply. Besides 'flower power's ' reply I can honestly say I hardly understood a word...(I am not being funny I really don't quite understand all of this). It doesn't sound good though...is there a link/site where people can learn about all of this altered food and crops in plain english and more simple terms? (then maybe I can re-read this and understand what it said)

[flowerpower]

Report on the Battle Over Biopharm Rice in Missouri
>From The Progressive Populist May 15, 2005
http://www.populist.com/05.9.mcmillen.html
Rural Routes/Margot Ford McMillen

FARMERS, CONSUMERS BALK at PHARMA RICE

......
The Missouri boot heel is a steamy, swampy ecosystem perfect for rice
production. Ventria proposes to plant 120 acres of pharmaceutical rice in
the midst of it. If the pharma-rice gets into the human food system,
Starlink-style, it could be the end of that industry.

Plant-made-pharmaceuticals, or PMPS, are the new faces in genetic
engineering. Promoters claim that they have found ways by tinkering with the
DNA to transform plants into "bio-factories" that turn out products like
human blood thinner or insulin. Ventria wants to tinker with three PMPs. One
is a gene found in human breast milk, another a gene found in human saliva,
and the third, an artificial blood protein. Sound useful? So far, nobody has
spoken up to buy these products, if indeed the products are ever really
created.

And, to make things more troublesome, these rice plants will be grown near
regular food crops where they can pollinate plants that are purchased by
Riceland or Anheuser-Busch or exported and used for food.

.....



It was these paragraphs that I found interesting.

[darwinslair]

anything new out there on this?

Tom

<winking at nedwina>

[neeld]

Using modified organisms to produce drugs and other complex organic chemicals holds huge promise. Using a wind pollinated food crop to do it is just stupid.

[deciduousLychees]

Using modified organisms to produce drugs and other complex organic chemicals holds huge promise. Using a wind pollinated food crop to do it is just stupid.Seconded. Somewhere between 'Here's an easy buck' and 'Eek, eviltech!' lies 'Wait, why are they using RICE, a seed crop, the cross pollention of whick affects this generation of output and could have some rather bad effects, instead of something that doesn't flower except under the right conditions, like potatos?" Imagine a world where Farmer Joe down the street produces your previously super expensive drugs for pennies.

[kefirmaven]

Report on the Battle Over Biopharm Rice in Missouri
>From The Progressive Populist May 15, 2005
http://www.populist.com/05.9.mcmillen.html
Rural Routes/Margot Ford McMillenI hope all y'all can get that GMO stuff stopped in your state.

[garden_vato]

frankenstein in real life...........:mad:

[GreenZone]

I hope all y'all can get that GMO stuff stopped in your state.
Not bloody likely! We're the home of Monsanto!:(

[kefirmaven]

Not bloody likely! We're the home of Monsanto!:(Oh gawd, this is terrible!

[Michelle8]

I'm curious to know if it went through and if it is still being grown?

[Zephyrbird5a-6]

anything new out there on this?

Tom

<winking at nedwina>

Not funny Tom, quit poking at Nedwina like this would you please??

Please? Is there not enough that goes on in here?

[darwinslair]

Not funny Tom, quit poking at Nedwina like this would you please??

Please? Is there not enough that goes on in here?

<laughing> do you honestly think what I have done here is offencive?

Tom

[darwinslair]

And I do think that these threads are underdiscussed becasue of how far in the past they were posted, and that combined with the fact that Jere was interested in the ramifications, and the perspective of the last 4 years on them, I do think makes them a good pertinent discussion. I did not repost everything. I was selective in what I chose.

Tom

[fruits&nuts]

Not bloody likely! We're the home of Monsanto!:(

Even in this economy, they're hiring all kinds of people in Missouri now, including more attorneys....

[older than dirt]

I might not be so against GMO if it were not for the fact that they insist on using human genes to mix in to the food crops.
No I dont like GMO . Something unwholesome about it but dont even know what/why. Just my gut tells me its bad news beyound the reasons i'm hearing.
In a warped sort of way we become canibales of sorts when we eat the corn , wheat , rice or what ever that has the human genes in it..
Have woundered if there was an anti biblical angle to this GMO foods with the human genes ? Not a bible resercher so dont know .

[Zephyrbird5a-6]

<laughing> do you honestly think what I have done here is offencive?

Tom

No, you're just acting like a jerk toward Nedwina and it's getting old. What in the world is the issue with doing this anyway?

Good grief. At no other time have you resurrected 4 year old threads, but now you do it just to irritate her?

Jeez.:mad:

[silverseeds]

I was happy to see most of the threads tom pulled up actually. I doubt he was trying to annoy anyone.

[Roserock]

Seems like they throw in the hope of curing disease to get preferential treatment. I know that sort of promise has worked to convince plenty of people that going non-GMO is akin to murdering starving African children and believing the Earth in flat. They really are not interested in or receptive to the idea that these plants have this stuff called pollen that can get spread around and why that might be bad.

[Nastarana]

Pollen spread is part of the plan. That way they can force everyone to grow their product.

[Nastarana]

Ventria website lists locations in Sacramento, CA, Junction City, KS, and Fort Collins, CO, as well as "other locations" in South America.

Ventria produces two products, lysomin and lactoferrin, proteins which are found in human breast milk. Ventria has made these products "affordable by producing them in rice." In other words, rice growing is cheaper than producing the stuff in a laboratory. There is a slick video showing cute brown-skinned children being treated with the products. Why not simply breastfeed one's babies is not addressed by the video.

So, first we convince mothers around the world that breastfeeding is passe, not up to date and scientific, and then when the babies get sick from the formula Big Pharm has sold them, Ventria steps in to sell products....derived from breastmilk.

[Roserock]

That reminds me, I've heard of people mixing in Monsanto's special seeds with regular seed orders as a way to stick it to the MAN, I guess you could say. There really is no way to control everything.

[Nastarana]

That reminds me, I've heard of people mixing in Monsanto's special seeds with regular seed orders as a way to stick it to the MAN, I guess you could say. There really is no way to control everything.

Which is one of the reasons I will only buy seeds from companies which honor the Safe Seed Pledge.

[Roserock]

There is a slick video showing cute brown-skinned children being treated with the products. Why not simply breastfeed one's babies is not addressed by the video. What is wrong with you? There's no time to think about this, there are CHILDREN STARVING IN AFRICA!!! :mad:

[darwinslair]

No, you're just acting like a jerk toward Nedwina and it's getting old. What in the world is the issue with doing this anyway?

Good grief. At no other time have you resurrected 4 year old threads, but now you do it just to irritate her?

Jeez.:mad:

NO

dammit. what is wrong with you people? do you take offense at everything? I was THANKING HER for getting me, for the first time, to look BACK at threads I never read, because they were posted 2 years before I even joined this forum.

What the heck is wrong with you people? I resurrected them ( and I thought I said this as well ) because I THOUGHT THEY MERITED MORE SPIRITED AND COMPLETE DISCUSSION.

Good lord. You would think sometimes we are trying to discuss things in junior high and you have to worry about offending the popular kids if they did not understand what you were talking about.

If Nasturana is annoyed with me for looking back at old threads I had never seen before, posted by the forum's founder, that had never been discussed and are still pertinent and discussable today, that is her problem. I had no idea she had issue with Jere's posts in the first place, either by sense of time (past) or person.

If she is annoyed because she thinks that 3 comments on a post which has garnered several times that in the hours since i bumped it, oh well. Get over it.

Maybe Jere doesnt post any more because his old posts were never discussed. Maybe this will bring Jere back into discussions, because it is pretty obvious the guy is passionate about some things, he posted them, and they never were carried on. Come on people. We have threads over a year old with thousands of posts that are 90% three people arguing with each other. These are from the founder of the site, I bumped no one off of the main page, was considerate to the point of making sure the poll discussing just this behavior stayed at the top and you are going to nit-pick me for this?

Get over it <laughing>

Tom

[darwinslair]

And as far as the ribbing her, was pointing out in a jovial fashion that there are old threads worth discussing, which I would not have discovered if not for her own thread.

Tom

[darwinslair]

I swear, you could make someone a special egg dish for breakfast and they would be positive you were making some comment about the fact that they ovulate, and it should be taken in a bad way.

[GreenZone]

I'm curious to know if it went through and if it is still being grown?
Truthfully, I don't know what became of this issue. I do know that I never heard we had any great victory.

My point about Monsanto was more general. I recently took a trip to Missouri's bootheel region, where it seems they grow almost nothing other than corn and soy, and a little cotton--all presumably GMO, or at least possibly so. Then we drove past some Monsanto installation in the middle of it all...Touched a nerve, mostly, I guess.

But yes, I'd like to know how this particular issue played out as well

[gardener5]

I might not be so against GMO if it were not for the fact that they insist on using human genes to mix in to the food crops.
No I dont like GMO . Something unwholesome about it but dont even know what/why. Just my gut tells me its bad news beyound the reasons i'm hearing.
In a warped sort of way we become canibales of sorts when we eat the corn , wheat , rice or what ever that has the human genes in it..
Have woundered if there was an anti biblical angle to this GMO foods with the human genes ? Not a bible resercher so dont know .

I'm glad ya brought this up because as I've told christian friends and do wonder why more christian don't speak up against it because it plainly playing God. All we have to do is look at Gensius and see God is the creator of things not man. The people I get most of my seeds feel similar so that is another reason I get my seeds from them, we have discussed them issue a lot between us.

[bunkie]

from what i can find, it looks like they gave up in 2005, but are still trying...

Ventria gives up on biopharm rice in Missouri this year.(Ventria Bioscience)

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-132527991.html

more info...

http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/policy_com.cfm

i am personally happy to see the old threads come back to life. in fact, there are so many new threads started that could actually have been posted under these older threads.

[Nastarana]

Darwinslair, I am grateful you resurrected threads which were begun before I was posting, or even reading, here. I think all of the retreads are interesting and important.

It would appear that Ventria isn't growing its GMO rice stateside--South America maybe? That would explain why the slick video was at such pains to show happy Latino children in hospitals.

I still don't see what is the problem with simply breastfeeding.

Ventria's entire effort seems to me to be entirely worthless, as well as a danger to the enbvironment. There might be a good reason for laboratory produced compounds for the child whose mother was not nurse, but Ventria clearly envisions mass production of its faux breasmilk for moms who have previously been persuaded a generation of American moms in the 1950s, that breastfeeding is not good for their children.

[GreenZone]

I still don't see what is the problem with simply breastfeeding.



So little money to be made on breastfeeding. Hard for any corporation to get a big chunk on it. Just my opinion.

[kefirmaven]

I might not be so against GMO if it were not for the fact that they insist on using human genes to mix in to the food crops.
No I dont like GMO . Something unwholesome about it but dont even know what/why. Just my gut tells me its bad news beyound the reasons i'm hearing.
In a warped sort of way we become canibales of sorts when we eat the corn , wheat , rice or what ever that has the human genes in it..
Have woundered if there was an anti biblical angle to this GMO foods with the human genes ? Not a bible resercher so dont know .Now that you mentioned the cannibalism...well what about kuru, and piron disease? :eek:

[Nastarana]

So little money to be made on breastfeeding. Hard for any corporation to get a big chunk on it. Just my opinion.

Qui bono, which means, roughly, who benefits, or, as we put it, follow the money.

Apolpgies to all for my incoherent 2am post above.