Yet another editorial from a US paper laying into US regulation - this time over the GM rice fiasco. Here are some others:

MORE RECENT EDITORIALS FROM U.S. PRESS

Biopharming gone awry - Denver Post http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6920

Mother Nature Is No Lab - Hartford Courant http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6920

A straw in the wind - Register-Guard http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6931

Escaped bentgrass sounds a warning - Minneapolis Star Tribune http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6920

EXCERPT FROM STAR TRIBUNE EDITORIAL BELOW: Bayer will now seek retroactive USDA approval to sell Liberty Link 601.

That may be of some help to American rice producers, who have seen prices plummet since Johanns' announcement. But it won't do much to boost their credibility, or the USDA's, with foreign customers. That will require a regulatory system that can be trusted to do what it claims -- under leadership that treats its customers' concerns with respect and candor, and discloses screwups without rationalization and delay.
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Editorial: Biotech foods: A cat that won't stay bagged
Another unapproved product finds its way into marketplace.
Star Tribune, August 27 2006 http://www.startribune.com/561/story/636485.html

WHO BUYS THE RICE

The U.S. rice crop is valued at nearly $1.9 billion. About half is exported. Of exports, about 80 percent is long-grain rice. Mexico is the largest single importer.

Last year, U.S. sales of long-grain rice to EU countries totaled about 198,000 metric tons, worth $67 million. Japan hasn't bought long-grain raw rice from the United States since 1998, but last year bought 235,000 tons of short- and medium-grain rice, as well as 17,000 tons of processed products that may be made with long-grain rice.

In a global marketplace that dislikes genetically modified (GM) foods, America's agricultural exports must rely on trust above all -- trust that GM varieties are safe to eat, preferable to grow and strictly regulated.

On the first point, the scientific support is pretty strong. On the second, which is about philosophy as much as science, it looks to be an uphill fight. And on the third, well. . . can't we go back to talking about safety?

That seems to be the approach at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, whose response to the latest regulatory breakdown -- inexplicable mixing of biotech rice into regular stocks -- can only make matters worse, trustwise, with skeptical export customers.

Friday before last, Secretary Mike Johanns announced that Bayer CropScience had found "trace amounts" of its engineered long-grain variety in U.S. bins holding rice from the 2005 crop. Although this GM rice was "regulated" -- fedspeak meaning "unapproved for market release" -- Johanns stressed that both his department and the Food and Drug Administration had found it to pose no threat to human or environmental health.

The announcement didn't mention that Bayer had notified USDA of its discovery on July 31, three workweeks earlier. Johanns acknowledged the timing at a press conference, explaining that USDA had withheld the information while trying to validate a test that producers, shippers and customers could use to detect the Bayer rice, an herbicide-resistant variety known as Liberty Link 601. Oh, and they were reviewing safety data, too -- not a time-consuming task, since the basis for declaring the 601 variety safe is only that its special protein is the same inserted into two earlier Bayer strains that were "deregulated" years ago.

Anyway, the testing is all about protecting sales, not safety. It was a sure bet that Japan and the EU countries would ban raw rice or processed foods contaminated, in their view, with the Bayer strain. Saving this billion-dollar export market required a way to certify shipments as GM-free.

Alas, three workweeks wasn't enough time for USDA to prepare answers to such questions as how the Bayer rice, field-tested between 1998 and 2001, could turn up in the 2005 harvest. Or how many rice bins, in how many states, contained the modified strain. Or whether any of the GM rice had reached U.S. supermarket shelves.

Some of this information has surfaced subsequently. According to Riceland Foods, the nation's largest rice marketer, the 601 strain was detected "across the rice belt" in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas. Moreover, Riceland also said it had been investigating the matter since January, when a customer discovered GM rice in an export shipment. How it got there remains a mystery, but a solution has emerged: Bayer will now seek retroactive USDA approval to sell Liberty Link 601.

That may be of some help to American rice producers, who have seen prices plummet since Johanns' announcement. But it won't do much to boost their credibility, or the USDA's, with foreign customers. That will require a regulatory system that can be trusted to do what it claims -- under leadership that treats its customers' concerns with respect and candor, and discloses screwups without rationalization and delay.

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