STLtoday - Genetically modified rice won't be planted near Bootheel fields: "The California company whose plan to sprout pharmaceutical rice in Missouri's Bootheel triggered a boycott threat from the Anheuser-Busch brewing company said Friday that it would seek a new Missouri planting site removed from commercial rice fields. After a meeting in St. Louis with brewery officials and political leaders, the California company, Ventria Bioscience, said it would amend its application with the U.S. Department of Agriculture so that its genetically engineered rice would be planted at least 120 miles away from the prime rice fields of southeast Missouri. "

I guess the market actually does work...thanks to worldwide consumer opposition to GMO crops. I will have to do some research on this, but I can't recall anyone having open-air fields of pharma-crops. There are many instances of cross-contamination of crops hundreds of miles away so this is merely a temporary setback. How Missouri can allow a company to plant this in an open-air field when you cannot even TEST to see if something has been contaminated by it is beyond me. Not even mentioning the fact that if it does contaminate other crops, it would more than likely render it worthless for human consumption. From a business standpoint, this GMO stuff is simply not going to work. ANd I love this line: "Blunt called the agreement 'a huge step forward' for agriculture, Missouri's plant-science industry and Ventria's goal of finding medicines that can help children." Oh please. There are already plenty of medicines and FOOD available to help all the children you want. It is a distribution 'problem' (read: no profit). GMO's are not going to help that.