"We certainly would urge the state folks to take a closer look at whether there will be benefits for the state," she said.

Deeter said that wherever the company decides to relocate, it plans to initially grow just a few hundred acres of the biotech rice and expand that as it develops products.

The only Kansas community to go public so far with its recruitment efforts is Topeka, where economic development officials have put together a $2.25 million incentive package to locate the processing plant and acreage in Shawnee County. But other Kansas communities, which neither Polansky or Ventria would identify, have also pitched proposals to Ventria.

All are located along the Kansas River Valley and the Missouri River Valley where the soils and water availability make it viable to productively grow rice, Polansky said.

Kansas grows no rice - and as far as researchers can determine has never grown rice - and the state doesn't even have wild rice, Polansky said. That's a key consideration since most of the opposition to biotech rice in other states has come from rice farmers worried the genetically engineered rice would affect their markets.

Little to no opposition has surfaced in Kansas so far. Deeter said Kansas is sophisticated when it comes to biotech crops, noting many of its soybeans and corn are genetically modified.

The first thing state officials had to do, however, was make sure rice would actually grow in Kansas.

Ventria did grow a successful plot of a rice in northwest Missouri two years ago when it was looking at Missouri as a possible location. Kansas officials believe the firm will have the same success just west of the state line.

To make sure, the Kansas Department of Agriculture has researched whether the state has the water, soils and growing season to grow rice. They believe it does, Polansky said. In Arkansas, the water needs for rice were similar to corn. Rice needed just one inch more of rain than corn to grow successfully.

"We believe that would pretty closely mirror the Kansas situation," Polansky said.

The crop is self-pollinating and would be grown under Agriculture Department supervision. Storage bins dedicated to rice would be kept near the fields where it is grown, Polansky said. The rice would be ground before it was moved to the processing facility, he said.

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On the Net:

Kansas Farm Bureau: http://www.kfb.org/

Ventrial Bioscience: http://www.ventria.com/