Over the past two years, protests by rice farmers and anti-biotech groups twice prompted Ventria Bioscience to abandon plans to plant its genetically modified rice in farm fields -- first in California, then Missouri.

Now, the 18-employee Sacramento firm has found fans in Kansas for its rice, which produces proteins that help children recover from diarrhea.

A Topeka-area economic development agency has proposed $2.25 million in incentives to encourage Ventria to build a $10 million rice processing facility there. Private investors and a Kansas state biotechnology agency are considering adding to the offer, according to Doug Kinsinger, president of the Topeka Chamber of Commerce.

If the Topeka deal falls through, the company likely will build the plant in North Carolina, where it has been growing small plots of rice for eight years, said Ventria CEO Scott Deeter. He noted that the company's headquarters would remain in Sacramento.

Officials in Topeka hope that a Ventria processing plant would eventually provide a market for as much as 30,000 acres worth of Ventria's special rice, which would be grown by Kansas farmers.

Unlike California and Missouri, Kansas has no rice industry -- and thus no rice farmers anxious about the marketing problems that genetically modified crops sometimes bring.

"We, being Kansas, do not grow rice. And that's a good thing," as far as Ventria's plans are concerned, said Ted Ensley, a commissioner for Shawnee County, which includes Topeka.

Ensley said that, so far, the proposal has not generated local opposition.

Ventria has developed a strain of rice that produces two proteins found in human breast milk. The proteins can speed recovery from diarrheal illnesses, which annually kill 2 million children, most in developing countries. Growing the proteins in rice is much cheaper than making them in other ways.

The company would later extract the proteins and sell them for use in oral rehydration solutions. It is awaiting approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for that application.

Ventria was founded by a University of California, Davis, biologist in 1993 and began growing its rice in greenhouses and small outdoor plots in California and North Carolina several years ago. It has a permit from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to grow 335 acres of rice in North Carolina and still grows the rice in greenhouses in California.

The company triggered controversy in 2004 when it issued plans to expand field plantings in California.

Opposition mostly stemmed from fears about the impact that pharmaceutical rice could have on the state's $500 million rice industry, especially with Asian buyers who reject biotech rice.

A rice industry commission approved the California plantings -- on the condition that they be done hundreds of miles away from the state's rice-growing areas -- but Ventria ultimately decided to pursue other locations. 


Source: International Academy of Life Sciences