Washington, DC, USA
December 13, 2010

The USA Rice Federation has filed an amicus curiae (also known as a “Friend of the Court”) brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals 8th Circuit in support of rice farmers from Arkansas and Missouri whose favorable jury verdicts against Bayer CropScience are being appealed by Bayer. The Court confirmed on December 9 that it had agreed to accept the filing.

“Two separate federal juries found against Bayer CropScience and awarded damages to groups of Arkansas and Missouri farmers because of the unintentional release of Bayer’s Liberty Link genetically engineered rice into the commercial long-grain rice supply in 2006,” said Jackie Loewer, a Branch, LA rice farmer and chairman of the USA Rice Federation. “Bayer’s decision to appeal is unfortunate and it wrongly seeks to shift the cost of Liberty Link onto rice farmers and away from Bayer,” Loewer added.

While not a party to the verdicts under appeal, USA Rice filed its Friend of the Court brief in its role as the global advocate for U.S. rice farmers and all segments of the U.S. rice industry. It seeks to help the court understand the issues raised on appeal by putting in context the relevant federal statute and regulations which are designed to protect U.S. agriculture from the unapproved release of experimental genetically engineered crops. USA Rice staff has testified at the request of rice farmer plaintiffs in three federal trials — including the two verdicts under appeal — and one Arkansas state trial. Rice farmers won all of these jury trials, and the combined damages awarded totaled $52 million.

“USA Rice members have led the effort since August 2006 to remove the Liberty Link traits from the long-grain supply and to mitigate market damage. We’ve made tremendous progress, but market disruption continues, especially in the European Union but also in other markets like Japan, Korea and Taiwan, where testing of U.S. rice is still required,” Loewer said. “Multiple federal and state juries have concluded that rice farmers suffered losses because of Bayer’s mismanagement of the company’s Liberty Link technology. Those juries are right,” concluded Loewer.

The USA Rice Federation is the global advocate for all segments of the U.S. rice industry with a mission to promote and protect the interests of producers, millers, merchants and allied businesses.

Website: http://www.usarice.com

Published: December 14, 2010