Rice Farmers Awarded Millions from Bayer Over GMO Contamination

The little guys win some gold from Goliath. From AP News:

A federal court jury has ordered the German conglomerate Bayer CropScience to pay $1.5 million to farmers in Arkansas and Mississippi whose rice seed was contaminated with a genetically altered strain.

Friday’s verdict was the second against Bayer CropScience for losses sustained by farmers when an experimental variety of rice that the company was testing infiltrated crops.

This is not a reward based on physical or health problems, but on financial damage suffered by these farmers. The market reality is such that once a crop is contaminated with a genetically altered strain, the staunchly anti-GMO European market slams its doors shut, and the farmers in question lost access to the European market thanks to Bayer’s negligence:

Gary Sebree, chairman of the Arkansas Rice Producers Association, said the state’s rice producers are still feeling the effects of the contamination 3½ years later.

“We still don’t have (the European) market, and I don’t know if we’ll ever have it like we had before,” he said. “It definitely has affected every rice farmer in Arkansas.”

Conventional ag and the GE industry can (and will) argue till they’re blue in the face that GMO crops are harmless, but this award is based on market reality. Bayer’s GMO pollution inflicted real financial harm on these farmers and they deserved to be compensated accordingly.