GM WATCH comment: Biter bit.

EXTRACTS: "Regrettably, we're sort of the victim here..." - Ray Gilmer, BASF'S group communications manager

He estimated losses to the company from the incident at between $1 million and $9 million dollars.

"We're probably talking about single-digit in the millions of a financial hit," Gilmer surmised.

He said the likely suspects for the contamination are Liberty Link rice biotech traits that escaped into the environment into the late 1990s. But Gilmer pointed out nothing is known for sure right now.

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More biotech woes for U.S. rice
by Peter Shinn
Brownfield, March 6 2007
http://www.brownfieldnetwork.com/gestalt/go.cfm?objectid=29619657-B177-208E-4FA289D3C916F9BB

Audio related to this story
http://www.brownfieldnetwork.com/resource_other/20070306/7e0b3d22-fd06-c618-adccdcf98956a307/043213/Ray Gilmer.mp3

BASF Agricultural Products of Research Park Triangle, North Carolina, is pulling one number of its Clearfield rice seed off the market. USDA ordered the company to do so after BASF found trace amounts of a biotech event in the Clearfield rice following extensive testing.

Ray Gilmer is group communications manager for the company. He said the likely suspects for the contamination are Liberty Link rice biotech traits that escaped into the environment into the late 1990s. But Gilmer pointed out nothing is known for sure right now.

"We know we found a GM [genetically modified] event in a sample of Clearfield 131 rice," Gilmer said. "But we have not yet identified if it is in fact Liberty Link or anything else."

Gilmore said much detective work will have to be done before the source of the biotech contamination is known. But until it is, Clearfield 131 rice, a conventional variety, won't be sold.

"Regrettably, we're sort of the victim here, and subject to USDA's authority," said Gilmer. "We want to make sure that the rice that we are selling, because it is conventionally bred it has the greatest acceptability for export or domestic consumption, but these are the steps that are necessary to withhold the spread of that genetic material, until we at least know what it is."

Gilmer said most BASF Clearfield rice seed is not affected by the recall. He estimated losses to the company from the incident at between $1 million and $9 million dollars.

"We're probably talking about single-digit in the millions of a financial hit," Gilmer surmised. "Thankfully, we have lots of other Clearfield varieties that are available to help fill the pipeline this year."

The discovery last year that unapproved biotech traits had been found in U.S. rice in six states disrupted export markets and prompted several class action lawsuits against Bayer CropScience, which bought the company that, in the late 1990s, originally released the unapproved biotech events. USDA has since approved those biotech varieties for animal and human consumption, but international approval hasn't followed suit.

Related Links:
http://www.agproducts.basf.com

BASF Agricultural Products
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/newsroom/content/2007/03/ge_riceseed_statement.shtml

USDA statement on Clearfield rice