Rice Farmer Awarded $500,000 in Crop Contamination Lawsuit

A jury awarded $500,248 last month to a farmer who claimed that he had lost just over $1.5 million when the genetically modified rice contaminated the U.S. rice supply. This is the third of five trials that have involved thousands of lawsuits filed against Bayer CropScience.

All of the commotion is because in 2006, Bayer CropScience released a herbicide-resistant rice, LibertyLink, into the rice supply and in which the farmers lost millions.

The release was announced before the rice had been approved for sale for human consumption. It has since been approved but it is not marketed commercially. Bayer claimed that the price quickly recovered and that farmers who waited suffered only small losses. The family farmer lost more than a million because he faced additional costs of switching crops and cleaning his equipment of LibertyLink rice.

The outcome of the trial gave both Plaintiffs and Defendants an indication of what may happen in other pending cases. There have been millions of dollars rewarded to other farmers who have suffered loses because of the LibertyLink rice.