Source: Reuters
The U.S. government gave approval on Wednesday for a biotech company to plant rice genetically modified to produce human proteins in Kansas. Ventria Bioscience of Sacramento, California, can now grow up to 3,200 acres of genetically modified rice in Geary County, Kansas, to produce proteins that would be used in medicine to treat diarrhea. Ventria plans to grow the rice on only 250 acres, said company president Scott Deeter. “We have grown it for nine years in North Carolina, California and South America as well,” he said. The approval by the Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) fuels concerns that another GMO crop will contaminate the U.S. food and feed supply.

Last summer, a genetically modified strain of long-grain rice made by Bayer CropScience, a unit of Bayer AG, which had not been cleared for food use, was found in commercial rice bins in Arkansas and Missouri. Several countries, including the European Union, have sharply cut back on U.S. rice purchases following the discovery. [more]