RiceTec Inc. is a private American company based and headquartered in

Alvin, Texas Alvin is a city in the U.S. state of Texas within the Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land metropolitan area and Brazoria County. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the city population was 27,098. Alvin's claim to fame is Baseball Hall of Famer Nolan ...

, that develops and produces

hybrid Hybrid may refer to: Science * Hybrid (biology), an offspring resulting from cross-breeding ** Hybrid grape, grape varieties produced by cross-breeding two ''Vitis'' species ** Hybridity, the property of a hybrid plant which is a union of two diff ...

rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

seed for the American and various international markets. RiceTec previously owned the consumer brand name RiceSelect which markets Texmati brand rice in grocery stores throughout North America. The company was founded in 1990 as a foreign for profit corporation and is owned by the Prince of Liechtenstein Foundation.

Hybrid seed rice

Development of hybrid rice began in the United States in 1980, as a partnership between the China National Seed Corporation and Ring Around Seed Corporation. These early attempts at growing hybrid rice were met with limited success due to problems in production and grain characteristics. In 1986 Farms of Texas Co. (at the time a large corporate farm) became part of the partnership to help develop better production practices and further research. Farms of Texas Co. was re-formed as RiceTec Inc. in 1990 and formed a partnership with the Chinese National Hybrid Rice Research Center in 1993 to provide RiceTec with exclusive access to Chinese

germplasm Germplasm refers to genetic resources such as seeds, tissues, and DNA sequences that are maintained for the purpose of animal and plant breeding, conservation efforts, agriculture, and other research uses. These resources may take the form of s ...

. RiceTec marketed its first commercial hybrid rice line in 2000, with the introduction of the Hybrid XL6, followed shortly by XL7 and XL8 in 2002. RiceTec introduced its first Newpath Herbicide resistant rice (in a partnership with BASF) known as Clearfield XL8 in 2003.

Litigation

Basmati patent controversy

RiceTec became widely known in the late 1990s due to an attempt by the company to patent

Basmati Basmati () is a variety of long, slender-grained aromatic rice which originates from the Indian subcontinent, mainly in the regions of Nepal, Punjab, Haryana, Sindh and many other states and provinces of India and Pakistan.International Rice Research Institute The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is an international agricultural research and training organization with its headquarters in Los Baños, Laguna, in the Philippines, and offices in seventeen countries. IRRI is known for its w ...

in the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

. They allowed for duplicate

s to be stored in a seed bank in

Fort Collins, Colorado Fort Collins is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule municipality in Larimer County, Colorado, United States, and its county seat. The population was 169,810 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, an i ...

. The patent was originally accepted by the US Patent & Trademark Office in 1997, but was officially challenged by the Indian government in 2000 and most patent claims were overturned in the US in 2002. Despite this, RiceTec continues to market their "Texmati" brand of rice as "long grain American Basmati", although no patents or trademarks on the title "Basmati" are currently held by the company (a current trademark is however held for "Texmati".)

Seed quality lawsuit

countersuit In a court of law, a party's claim is a counterclaim if one party asserts claims in response to the claims of another. In other words, if a plaintiff initiates a lawsuit and a defendant responds to the lawsuit with claims of their own against t ...

(in response to a suit filed by RiceTec for non-payment) was filed against RiceTec on July 6, 2012, in Green County, Arkansas, by Scott Meredith, a rice farmer from Green County. The suit alleged that Meredith had been sold both impure and defective seeds by RiceTec, and also accused RiceTec of negligence,

breach of contract Breach of contract is a legal cause of action and a type of civil wrong, in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other part ...

breach of warranty In law, a warranty is an expressed or implied promise or assurance of some kind. The term's meaning varies across legal subjects. In property law, it refers to a covenant by the grantor of a deed. In insurance law, it refers to a promise by the ...

, and violating the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act for misrepresenting and mislabeling its seeds. According to the lead attorney for the plaintiff, the hybrid seed rice he (Scott Meredith) purchased had inferior milling characteristics that hurt marketability and did not yield as was promised by the company. The case received widespread attention in the rice producing areas of the United States and prompted RiceTec

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

John Nelsen to issue a statement rebuffing all allegations and promising to fight the lawsuit. In November 2012, a judge dismissed the claim against RiceTec.

References

{{Authority control Agriculture companies of the United States Agriculture companies established in 1990 Plant breeding 1990 establishments in Texas Brazoria County, Texas Rice in the United States

Hybrid seed rice

Litigation

Basmati patent controversy

Seed quality lawsuit

See also

References