The Associated Press

WICHITA, Kan. - A biotechnology firm that abandoned plans to grow biotech rice in California and Missouri amid protests by farmers and others in those states is now being courted by Kansas.

Ventria Bioscience, a small Sacramento, Calif.-based firm, expects to decide in about a month whether it will relocate its processing plant and rice acreage to Kansas, said Ventria president Scott Deeter.

Biopharming is the practice of growing food crops genetically engineered with human genes to produce drugs. Ventria's rice is used to make an experimental U.S. drug to treat diarrhea.

"We are in the process of expanding our production - and Kansas is on the short list for that expansion," Deeter said. "We haven't made a decision yet, but we are coming very close."

The other state on its short list is North Carolina, where the firm already grows 335 acres of its genetically modified rice, he said.

Leading efforts to lure Ventria here is Kansas Secretary of Agriculture Adrian Polansky and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. Polansky first learned of the biotech opportunity after meeting Deeter six months ago at an international biotechnology meeting in Chicago.

Since then, economic development officials from several northeast Kansas communities have been quietly building support among the state's major farm organizations while putting together economic incentive packages to lure Ventria.

"We don't often get opportunities that are very beneficial to production agriculture, to our communities in Kansas and also tie to real benefits in this case to providing health care at a lower cost," Polansky said. "To me, it is a very exciting opportunity."

Some scientists aren't so sure, and fear the technology could threaten the safety of conventional food crops by inadvertently mixing with them. While it may be an advantage to grow pharmaceutical rice in a state like Kansas with no commercial rice production, it's still a "bad idea" to produce pharmaceutical compounds in food, said Jane Rissler, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"This is not agricultural production - this is drug production," Rissler said. "This is pharmaceutical production and pharmaceutical production in food plants should be discouraged."

Ventria hopes to eventually grow 30,000 acres of rice in the state, possibly in five to six years, Polansky said. It would guarantee Kansas growers a profit of between $150 and $200 per acre above their current best economic crop. That would be $6 million a year of added income to Kansas farmers, Polansky said.

"It is an opportunity to grow a different crop that is a little more profitable than what we have been growing," said Steve Baccus, an Ottawa County farmer and president of the Kansas Farm Bureau. "We don't grow rice, but agronomically they tell us there is no reason we can't grow it here. It has just never been done."

Ventria would bring its research and processing facility to the state, creating significant paying jobs, Polansky said.

Rissler is skeptical, and cited a report last year from Robert Wisner, an economics professor at Iowa State University, that concluded that market forces will drive down farmer compensation. It said the acreage needed for bioengineered crops is so small, only a few farms would benefit.