Editorial: Farm community not ready for pharm crop project

There was nothing wrong with the premise -- using a combination of science and nature to grow a relatively few acres of genetically modified rice in Southeast Missouri with the potential to save millions of lives around the world.

That wasn't the only promising potential. Aside from the healing factor, some hoped that the project would thrust Missouri into the brave new world of pharmaceutical bio-farming, allowing the agricultural and health-care industries to tap into a multibillion-dollar global market.

It sounds like a good idea and it is.

Just not here in Southeast Missouri.

At least not yet.

The project is being proposed by Ventria Bioscience, a company that specializes in the development of plant-made pharmaceuticals. Ventria recently relocated from California to Missouri and drafted farmer David Herbst of Chaffee to grow this spring the so-called GMO rice on 150 acres near the junction of Route EE and Highway 77.

The so-called pharmaceutical crops are those that contain human medicines. The plants basically become manufacturers of proteins, a less expensive process than growing them in a laboratory or extracting them from animal tissue. The rice could be engineered to produced proteins found in saliva, tears and mother's milk. The proteins can be made into medicine.

Those proteins have the potential to address health issues such as severe dehydration due to diarrhea, which kills more than 1.3 million children under the age of 5 every year across the globe.

Ventria, which is setting up shop in Maryville, Mo., in a partnership with Northwest Missouri State University, had gone through the motions. In January, Ventria submitted permit requests to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to grow its crops in three Southeast Missouri counties -- Scott, Cape Girardeau and Mississippi. But its initial plan was to start in Chaffee and then expand.

Everything seemed ready to go.

But then rice farmers in the Missouri Bootheel found out about the proposal and alarms went off.

Some farmers, though by no means all, said they feared that the genetically modified rice would contaminate their crops, rendering them worthless to big-time rice buyers like Riceland Foods and Anheuser-Busch. The European Union has already said it would not accept any level of transgenic material.

It's a tough time for farmers of all stripes, whether you grow rice or soybeans, corn or wheat. The cost of doing business is going up while the price of their commodities are shrinking. The bottom line is getting smaller and smaller already.

The farmers said they saw the potential in projects like this one, but said they couldn't afford to take another financial hit. Then Anheuser-Busch confirmed those fears by saying that it would not buy any rice from Missouri if the project took place in the Bootheel.

Then, Gov. Matt Blunt, U.S. Sen. Kit Bond and U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson brokered a deal to move the Ventria operation at least 120 miles away from commercial growing areas. Anheuser-Busch dropped its threat to boycott and Riceland Foods, the world's largest rice miller, said its concerns were mostly assuaged.

But Ventria finally gave up its plans late last month to grow genetically modified rice in Missouri this year, saying the company can't get a permit from federal regulators in time for growing season.

Ventria has back-up plans for this year, such as getting pharmaceutical rice crops started in North Carolina, where it already has permits, and possibly supplementing those crops in South American fields later this year.

It said Missouri is in its plans for next year regardless, but even that plan has problems. Some experts and farmers note that there's a reason rice is grown only in Southeast Missouri -- it has ideal conditions, such as an abundance of water, a lengthy growing season, flat land and the proper soil types.

Growing in other parts of the state, where those conditions don't exist, will be tough. Ventria says it can do it. Farmers are still worried about contamination, saying that birds can carry the contaminated rice for miles and it still could find its way into the food-grade rice.

The debate looks likely to continue well into the future.