Farmers have long experimented with crops bred to produce better yields, with few ill effects. But with little public debate, something entirely new—rice engineered to produce human proteins—is coming to a grocery store near you. In May, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) authorized Ventria Bioscience to grow as many as 3,200 acres of special rice that produces proteins normally found in breast milk.
The California-based company hopes to market its rice as the key ingredient in a cheap formula to treat diarrhea, a condition that kills 3 million children worldwide each year. The company believes its special brand of rice may be of particular appeal to aid organizations. Yet Ventria maintains that pharmaceutical rice doesn't need the clinical testing required of new drugs because it's a food, not a drug. U.S. rice growers, however, fear a backlash from customers in Europe and Asia if medicine gets accidentally mixed in with the food supply. Anheuser-Busch, the largest rice buyer in the United States, used its considerable clout to keep Ventria's "pharming" techniques out of Missouri--and out of its beer. Mere paranoia? Only two months before it gave Ventria the green light, the USDA banned another company's variety of long-grain rice that may have been contaminated by mysterious genetic material.
Undeterred, Ventria is plowing ahead. This fall, the first batch of its breast-milk rice was harvested outside Junction City, Kansas. Ventria's rice is supposed to hit markets in 2008, and it will likely be just the first of many pharmaceutical crops. Aspirin corn, anyone?
[Photo: Jay Directo/Getty Images]
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