Farmers denied class-action suit

A federal judge has ruled that hundreds of farmers will not be able to consolidate their lawsuits against Bayer CropScience over the accidental release of experimental genetically engineered rice into the food supply.

U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry denied a motion to certify the farmers’ claims into one class-action suit, saying they were too different from one another to be lumped into a single case.

The rice farmers are suing Bayer CropScience to recoup income they claim to have lost after the release of the company’s so-called Liberty Link rice into the public food supply in 2006. After the contamination was announced, some foreign countries temporarily banned U.S. rice exports.