In a letter to Greenpeace, the Chairman of Ebro Puleva states:
“We regret that U.S. rice is facing a problem with GM rice and
decided to stop any imports of U.S. rice since August 2006.”
The move follows a summer of scandals, with illegal GE
contamination found in rice products all over Europe. As a result,
the global food industry is now facing tremendous costs associated
with this contamination as a result of product recalls, brand
damage, import bans and cancelled imports and contracts.
U.S. rice farmers have filed at least three multi-million dollar
class action lawsuits against Bayer CropScience and Ebro Puleva has
said they expect to bring legal actions against Bayer as well.
“The US government should be doing all it can to protect our
farmers and food processors from the costly economic impact of GE
contamination of U.S. export crops,” said Doreen Stabinsky,
Greenpeace GE Campaigner. “Unfortunately, the government has done
as little as possible to regulate the genetic engineering industry
and the high cost of that policy choice is now clear to all in the
U.S. rice industry.”
In January, Bayer’s illegal GE LL601 rice was detected in rice
intended for export from the U.S. This variety has not been
approved for human consumption anywhere in the world. It has only
been grown in field trials that ended in 2001. In September of
2006, testing commissioned by Greenpeace and then by various
European government agencies revealed that a broad variety of
products on supermarket shelves in Europe had been contaminated by
Bayer’s illegal GE rice. Following the Greenpeace exposé, German
supermarket chain Edeka announced that they would cease selling all
U.S. long grain rice. A number of European retailers, millers and
processors have followed suit.
VVPR info: Contact: Jane Kochersperger, Media Officer, Greenpeace U.S., (202) 680-3798
Doreen Stabinsky, GE Campaigner, (207) 276-5284
Namrata Chowdhary, Greenpeace International Communications: +31 646 1973 27
Notes: The letter from the Chairman is available online at:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/letter-from-ebro-puleva-to-gre
