Biotech firm to build rice processing plant in Kan.

~ In 2005, Ventria withdrew a plan to grow its engineered rice in Southeast Missouri.

JUNCTION CITY, Kan. -- A California company that has faced criticism for growing and processing genetically engineered rice is planning to open a processing plant here and contract with area farmers to grow the crop.

State and local officials have embraced Ventria Bioscience's project, and they and the Sacramento, Calif.-based firm's leader tout it as a major boost for Kansas' emerging biosciences industry.

Ventria plans to use the genetically altered rice it grows for manufacturing medicine, including one developed to fight childhood diarrhea, a leading cause of death for infants and toddlers worldwide.

The company had planned to grow its engineered rice in Southeast Missouri but withdrew the plan in 2005 after protests from farmers, state legislators and Anheuser-Busch.

Ventria plans to spend $6 million to renovate an abandoned grocery distribution center here and hopes farmers under contract will begin planting rice in the spring. Eventually, Ventria could hire 50 workers at its plant and contract to grow 30,000 acres of rice, chief executive officer Scott Deeter said.

"There were a lot of states that were very excited about Ventria putting a bioprocessing facility in place," Deeter, a Holton native, said after the news conference. "We're quite excited about Kansas. We think it's a perfect fit for us."

'Great stuff or what?'

Tracy Taylor, CEO of the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corp., a state agency set up to nurture emerging high-tech industries, said the project will create high-paying jobs, generate wealth for farmers and investors, improve health care and allow a Kansas native to bring his company into his home state.

"Is that great stuff or what?" Taylor said.

But Jane Rissler, a senior scientist and plant pathologist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, was skeptical the promised benefits would emerge.

"I have seen promise after promise after promise to get venture capital, to get taxpayer funds, and most of the promise does not appear," she said. "States with a lot of farmers and rural communities that need support, I can understand their searching for an industry that will help farmers and help revitalize rural communities, but this isn't it."

The practice of growing genetically modified crops to use in manufacturing drugs is sometimes called "biopharming," and the products have nicknames such as "pharmarice" and "pharmacorn."

Outside Kansas, Ventria's critics contend its technology could threaten the safety of conventional food crops by mixing with them. Rissler said contamination could make crops more dangerous for human consumption and increased biopharming makes contamination more likely.

Thomas Wynn, director of market development for the U.S. Rice Producers Association in Houston, said no one in the U.S. is growing genetically modified rice to sell to consumers. He said some people simply don't want to eat food they perceive as not being "completely natural."

"There are a lot of countries that are concerned about those types of things," he said. "We try to keep our industry as clean as possible."

California's native rice industry drove Ventria's experimental work out of that state two years ago, and protests by farmers and others in Missouri caused the company to abandon plans there.

Anheuser-Busch Companies, the nation's No. 1 brewer of beer and buyer of rice, announced in April it wouldn't buy rice from Missouri if the growth of pharmacrops were allowed there.

But Kansas has no rice-growing industry, and its officials are enthusiastic about Ventria's plans, having connected with the company earlier this year during an international biosciences convention in Chicago.

Junction City has pledged $5.5 million in incentives, money it expects to reclaim over time as the company's operations become profitable. Ventria plans to pay farmers between $150 and $200 more an acre than they're receiving for their current best crop, said state Agriculture Secretary Adrian Polansky.

"Kansas producers are progressive. Producers have adopted technology, biotechnology in corn and soybeans very, very readily," Polansky said. "We are very supportive of doing things better."

Polansky also said Ventria's efforts will create a "closed system," in which its rice is stored near farmers' fields and used only by Ventria. Deeter said the company will burn the material not used.

Deeter said the company genetically modifies its rice so that it produces a protein common in the human body, though the process does not involve mixing human and plant material. He said the protein is then extracted and used in medical products.

"We can make a major different for some of the children around the world who need it the most," Deeter said during the news conference.

Rissler said companies choose food crops for biopharming because they're relatively easy to work with. However, she said, there are alternatives, including growing fungi in a secure environment.

"They must stop, and if they want to produce drugs, use alternative systems," she said. "That is the only sane, long-term, safe way to go."

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On the Net:

Ventria: http://www.ventria.com

Kansas Department of Agriculture: http://www.ksda.gov

Trade group for Kansas' biosciences industry: http://www.kansasbio.org

Union of Concerned Scientists: http://www.ucsusa.org/

Rice producers: http://www.usriceproducers.com/