Tears, Biopharm Rice, & a Free California

March 17, 2005

Tears, Rice and a Free California
by Arty Mangan, Bioneers Food and Farming Director

I don't cry much. I'll hide behind a cliche and say, "It's a guy thing". The human body is truly amazing. Did you know that a teardrop contains proteins that are natural antibiotics and protect against eye infection? You may not know that, but the biotech company Ventria Bioscience does, and they want to own it. Yes, they want to own the genetics of the protein contained in tears. It makes me want to cry.

Biotech companies are in the business of owning life forms by manipulating genes using a virus as a vector, slapping a patent on it, making it theirs and theirs alone. Maybe this is what is meant by "the ownership society".

It would all be quite absurd if it wasn't so serious. Privatization of public resources is a corporate crusade, and it's not just happening in the biotech arena. In Bolivia, Bechtel had a water provision contract and went so far as to privatize rainwater in the Province of Cochabamba. When the indigenous Ayamara people collected rain runoff from their roofs for household needs and to water their gardens, Bechtel protested, claiming the locals were stealing their water. It got ugly, a 17 year old boy died when the police were brought in to control the riots. But at least in the end, Bechtel packed up and left.

Yes, as hard as it is to believe, we live in a world where rainwater and teardrops are at risk of being owned by corporations.

But first I want to say that not all businesses should be painted with the same brush. Let me tell you about Albert Lundberg. Albert learned early in life the value of good soil. He was a refugee from the Midwest dustbowl era. When drought, wind and erosion made farming in Nebraska impossible, he headed to California and started growing rice commercially. By the 1960's, he had developed "organic" agriculture growing practices before there was any certification or even a market premium. He developed those methods to care for and conserve a farmer's main asset, the soil. By the late 1960's, he developed relationships with natural food distributors Chico San and Erewon and began to market organic brown rice. Today the Lundberg organization involves 2nd and 3rd generation family members and is a leader in organic rice production. The Lundbergs have a written policy against using food crops as platforms for drug production and they played a significant role in educating rice farmers and industry members on the issues of genetically engineered (GE) pharmaceutical rice and its potential impact on California's 500,000 acre, 500 million dollar rice industry.

Plants as drug factories and pig vaccine in corn Ventria Bioscience has been doing research field trials of their pharmaceutical rice in California since 1997. The rice contains synthetic versions of the human proteins found in tears and breast milk. Ventria hopes to market the drug as anti-diarrhea, antibiotic and anti-fungal. Federal regulations allow location of test fields to be confidential. That information can even be withheld from the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) by simply writing CBI (confidential business information) on the application. The only real requirement is a 100 ft. buffer between GE research and commercial crops. Things like pig vaccines and human contraceptives have been part of the over one-hundred GE pharmaceutical field trials approved for research in the U.S.; nine of which have been conducted in California. Biotech companies like the idea of turning farm crops into drug factories for the simple reason it is a cheap production system.

In the year 2000, the California Rice Commission worked with the California state legislature to pass regulation AB2622 (also known as the California Rice Certification Act). The regulation formed an Advisory Board that has the power to approve and create protocols for any new rice introduced into
California. It is the only such regulation for any crop in any state.

In March of 2004, Ventria went to the California Rice Commission requesting an emergency ruling to approve their rice for commercial production so they wouldn't miss the planting season that year.

Wait a second. What's the hurry? Why after seven years of research trials did Ventria give itself only one month to get commercial production approval? Was it bad planning on Ventria's part, or perhaps good strategy? Either way what's the emergency?

Nevertheless, the AB2622 Advisory Board granted Ventria an expedited process, with a truncated public comment period reduced to 10 days from the normal 30. Rice farmers, who feared contamination could jeopardize their crop, contacted CAL GE Free, a coalition to halt the introduction of GE
crops. FDA has a zero tolerance for pharmaceutical crop contamination. CAL
GE Free was instrumental in working with the farmers and helping get the word out to the public. As a result two to three thousand responses were received, heavily against approving the crop. In addition Amberwaves, an NGO dedicated to preserving whole grains from the threat of genetic engineering, presented Board member Tim Johnson with a petition signed by another 10,000 people against growing pharmaceutical rice.

The AB2622 Advisory Board's attorney George Soarez advised the Board that they could not ban Ventria's rice, and could not consider in their decision how the public would accept the risk of contamination. Soarez advised the Board that it could only set terms and conditions for the planting of the pharmaceutical rice.

Now here is an interesting coincidence. George Soarez is a partner of Kahn, Soarez, and Conway, a law firm that represents other producers of GE crops, including Dow and Syngenta. Syngenta has conducted at least nine GE rice crop field tests, including at least one in California.

Doesn't that raise the question: how, under such circumstances, a legal interpretation could be objective and unbiased even if an honest intent is there? It certainly got the attention of The Center for Food Safety (CFS) who publicly raised the issue of conflict of interest and then had its legal team present its interpretation of the regulation to the AB2622 Advisory Board. In essence, the CFS legal team said it saw no restriction in the regulation prohibiting the Board from either banning the Ventria crop or from considering how public acceptance of the risk of drug rice contaminating food rice would impact its market.

Step Back

Let's take a step back just for a moment and take a broader look. California's rice fields are one of the largest natural wildlife sanctuaries in North America, with hundreds of species of mammals, birds, insects, amphibians, and fish. How would antibiotic rice affect all of that?

These human proteins are found in tears, saliva, breast milk, even in the protective barrier that guards babies in the womb against E.coli, strep, and yeast infections. They are exquisite substances, profound biological treasures protecting all of us as part of our complex, elegant and not totally understood immune system.

What happens if Ventria's synthetic version of these proteins does get loose in the food system? Decades ago Penicillin was an effective antibiotic against certain pathogens. We know now, those same pathogens, through adaptation and antibiotic resistance, eat Penicillin for lunch, given the opportunity. BT, a natural bacteria that is fatal to some agricultural pests, is used effectively and harmlessly in its natural form by organic farmers. We know now that in its genetically engineered form in corn, it is deadly to beneficial microbes and creates a dead zone in the soil.

There are no guarantees against contamination. What are the potential unintended consequences of rice containing antibiotic drugs polluting the food system? No one really knows, not even Ventria, regardless of their assurances.

With all of that as backdrop the AB2622 Advisory Board was charged, appropriately, with making a decision based solely on the economic impact to its industry. Forty percent of U.S. rice is exported and Japan is the number one export destination. Tsutomu Matsumoto, Japan's consul in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry, in a written statement to the San Francisco Chronicle said "Concerning California's (genetically engineered) rice production issue, Japanese consumers have a serious concern in regards to food safety".

Nevertheless, following the legal guidelines of its attorney, the Advisory Board approved commercialization of Ventria pharmaceutical rice with the following restrictions: it could only be grown in ten designated counties in Southern California, all of which are at least 100 miles from the Davis to Chico rice growing belt, equipment must be cleaned in the same field where the GE rice is grown to prevent transporting viable GE seed rice to other fields, and harvested product must be covered in transport. It did allow for milled GE pharmaceutical rice to be transported back to rice counties for processing, and for research trials to be conducted anywhere in the state without public knowledge of location, deferring to the federal standard. To its credit the Board established the strictest controls anywhere in the U.S. for any GE drug or food crop. But are they enough?

Change of plans The Advisory Board then presented those recommended protocols to the California Secretary of Agriculture A.G. Kagamura. The Secretary rejected Ventria's emergency proposal. John C Dyer of CDFA said "It is clear that the public wants an opportunity to comment prior to any authorization to plant." So Ventria decided to move to Missouri and will collaborate with Northwest Missouri State University to become the anchor company in a new program of GE plant-made-pharmaceutical production.

What happened in California is important. There was a process that allowed input by the rice industry, the public, environmental groups, business and state agencies. All too often these decisions are solely in the hands of the Biotech industry and the complicit federal regulatory agencies. California rice is the only industry that has some say in what crop varieties are
introduced. That level of local control was able to slow down the steamroller of the Biotech industry and ultimately accommodate crucial public input.

How can other states implement and improve on the process? Arkansas, the leading rice producing state, has recently passed legislation banning rice with human genes. What will Missouri do?

Was the process in California perfect? No one I talked to thought so. But at least in the end, Ventria packed up and left.

For more information:

USDA requesting public comments on pharmaceutical rice by March 25