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Lawsuit filed over genetically modified rice Wednesday, Aug 30, 2006 By Rob Moritz Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - A group of 20 rice farmers in Lonoke County filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Bayer CropScience LP and Riceland Foods Inc. alleging genetically engineered rice contaminated the long-grain rice in the state. The lawsuit, filed in Lonoke County Circuit Court, is seeking damages to compensate farmers for falling rice prices. Riceland Foods, headquartered in Stuttgart, is the nation's top-producing rice company and the world's leading miller and marketer of rice. Two similar class action lawsuits were filed Monday in federal court. "We want to know who knew what and when to be able to avoid this," attorney Paul Byrd said Tuesday after filing the lawsuit on behalf of the farmers. Byrd, of Little Rock, works for the law firm of Hare, Wynn, Newell and Newton LLP, which is based in Birmingham, Ala. "Best we know, Riceland knew something as early January," he said. Byrd said he decided to file the lawsuit in circuit court, rather than federal court, "to get my guys a remedy as fast as possible." "I thought a class action might take too long," he said. Since the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced earlier this month that trace amounts of the rice have been found in Arkansas, rice prices have dropped because Japan has suspended imports of U.S. long grain rice and the European Union has started taking only long grain rice that is specially inspected to be free of the genetically modified material. The lawsuit says Bayer CropScience modified the rice, known as LLRICE601, to be resistant to a herbicide it has developed called Liberty. The USDA has not approved the modified rice for commercial distribution. The lawsuit says Riceland became aware that the nation's rice supply was contaminated by LLRICE601 in January and did not tell rice farmers, including Riceland's farmer-members. "If Riceland had disclosed when it knew about LLRICE601 contamination as soon as Riceland learned of such evidence, plaintiffs would not have planted long-grain rice in spring 2006," the lawsuit said. "They, instead, would have planted other varieties or other crops that would have made money for them than the sale of tainted long-grain rice will bring in 2006." Greg Coffey, spokesman for Bayer CropScience in Research Triangle, N.C., declined comment Tuesday afternoon, saying the company doesn't comment on pending litigation. Officials with Riceland Foods in Stuttgart did not immediately return a call seeking comment. However, on Aug. 18, Bill J. Reed, Riceland Foods' vice president for public affairs, issued a statement saying that the company learned in January that genetically engineered rice had been discovered and that a sample was sent to a laboratory. Because the laboratory was unable to determine the origin of the modified rice, Riceland in May collected samples of rice from several grain storage locations and a significant number tested positive for the trait. Bayer was notified in June, the statement said. Bayer confirmed in late July that the herbicide-resistance trait was found in about 6 kernels in 10,000 kernels of rice, according to Reed's statement. "USDA officials began their investigation Aug. 1," the memo stated. "Riceland has cooperated fully with the USDA requests for information in an effort to resolve the situation and will continue to do so." |
