Washington, Mar. 5 - There may be unapproved genetically modified material in a type of long grain rice seed produced by the BASF Corporation (BF) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued a "hold" order on distributing or planting while tests are conducted this week.
Farmers may have already begun 2007 planting, USDA spokeswoman Andrea McNally said Monday night, so a small amount of BASF's Clearfield CL131 - the rice seed in question - may already be in the ground.
Ron DeHaven, director of USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said in a prepared statement that the agency began sending notifications to seed distributors Sunday that the seed "must be held until APHIS can verify and identify the presence of additional genetic material. APHIS directed distributors to begin notifying producers yesterday."
BASF, in a statement released Monday, said it will work with the USDA to rid Clearfield CL131 rice "from the marketplace following discovery that some of the seed has been contaminated by an unidentified genetically modified ... event."
The company said Clearfield CL131 rice is not a genetically modified type of rice, but BASF scientists asked for USDA's help after detecting the presence of biotech rice produced by Bayer CropScience, a unit of Bayer AG (BAY).
The European Union now bans U.S. rice because unapproved genetically modified rice was found last year in commercial stocks. That GM rice - Liberty Link 601 made by Bayer CropScience - has since been approved and is now considered "deregulated" by the USDA.