Proposal keeps state grain wild

By Scott Wente

Capitol Reporter

      ST. PAUL - Wild rice, one of the state’s official symbols, would stay wild under a legislative proposal announced Wednesday.

      Lawmakers want to prohibit genetically engineered variations of the grain from being released, grown or sold in Minnesota.

      Bill sponsor Sen. Becky Lourey, DFL-Kerrick, said it would prevent natural stands of wild rice from being contaminated by genetically engineered variations.

      Lourey said the issue is urgent, but a Senate committee disagreed. It tabled the bill, meaning the proposal probably won’t resurface until next year.

      A companion bill was introduced in the House by DFL Rep. Karen Clark of Minneapolis, but a hearing this session is not likely.

      Among the proposal’s biggest supporters is Winona LaDuke, a former Green Party vice presidential candidate and the director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project. She said native wild rice is a sacred centerpiece of the Chippewa culture. Roughly 60,000 acres is grown in Minnesota.

      “This is the mother lode of biodiversity of wild rice,” LaDuke said Wednesday at the Capitol. “You contaminate that and you destroy it because genetic contamination is irreversible.”

      Also, LaDuke said there are financial implications to the state if genetically engineered variations are allowed. Exportation of Minnesota-grown wild rice is a $22 million industry, and foreign buyers don’t want genetically altered variations.

      “This is something that should not be messed up,” she said. “People buy our rice largely because it’s wild.”

      Nobody yet has attempted to grow genetically engineered wild rice in the state. Opponents to Lourey’s legislation said research needed to get to that point is far too costly to be done soon.

      They also argued that the bill closes off future scientific options. Ray Frost of the Minnesota Biotechnology Association said the legislation would have a chilling effect on other research.

      “Legislation like this would inhibit our ability to do something that might potentially benefit,” Frost told the Senate Agriculture, Veterans and Gaming Committee, which tabled Lourey’s bill.

      Lourey said the state Department of Natural Resources supports the proposal, but promised a meeting between rice growers concerned about the bill and American Indians who favor it. That is scheduled for later this spring.

      It’s worth waiting until next legislative session to take up the bill if it means there will be an agreement between all affected groups, Lourey said.

      “I think it’s just become much stronger,” she said of the proposal.