Human beans may come to a plate near you

The US Department of Agriculture has signalled its plans to allow the commercial cultivation of genetically-modified rice on more than 3000 acres in Kansas.

The laboratory-created rice has been genetically engineered to produce lactiva and lysomin - two proteins found naturally in breast milk, and reported to have significant potential against diarrhoea.

Ventria Bioscience, a Californian-based biotech company, has produced three varieties of the rice, each with a different human-origin gene that makes the plants produce one of three human proteins. The genes, cultivated and copied in a laboratory to produce a synthetic version, are carried into embryonic rice plants inside bacteria.

The bacteria-fighting compounds lactoferrin and lysozyme are to be harvested and used in drinks, desserts, yoghurts and muesli bars.

Until now, plants with human-origin genes have been restricted to small test plots. The company originally planned to grow the rice in southern Missouri but the brewer Anheuser-Busch, a huge buyer of rice, threatened to boycott the state amid concern over contamination and consumer reaction.

Now the USDA, saying the rice poses "virtually no risk', has given preliminary approval for it to be grown in Kansas, which has no commercial rice farms.

According to Ventria Bioscience, food products using the rice proteins could help save many of the two million children a year who die from diarrhoea and the resulting dehydration and complications which are particularly prevalent in the Third World.

The company will use dedicated equipment, storage and processing facilities supposed to prevent seeds from mixing with other crops.