USA: Bayer CropScience to pay 1.5 $ to farmers

A federal jury has ordered Bayer CropScience to pay 1.5 million $ to two Arkansas farmers and one Mississippi farmer because the farmers and their livelihood were hurt with the company's GM rice, St. Louis Business Journal reports.This is the second of five “bellwether trials” scheduled for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri that involve farmers in Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, and could have an impact on the entire agriculture industry.

A federal jury in St. Louis had ordered the Bayer unit to pay 2 million $ to two Missouri farmers for losses sustained when the company’s experimental rice cross-bred with their crops in December last year. The US Food and Drug Administration and US Department of Agriculture have determined Bayer CropScience biotech rice to be safe for human consumption but Bayer CropScience has not yet commercialized the crop. More trials involving Bayer and rice farmers are scheduled for this summer in the same federal courtroom in St. Louis and will include farmers from Louisiana and Texas.

St. Louis Business Journal