Bioscience company could change the face of the Junction City economy
8:44 p.m. Friday, September 29, 2006
A new industry could bring more than 40 million dollars in revenue to the Sunflower State. Efforts to bring one bioscience company to Junction City that could change the face of the local economy.
This 48,000 square foot building is the new bioprocessing plant for Ventria Bioscience. The company's rice processing allows them to specialize in plant-made pharmaceuticals.
"It's amazing what you learn about rice. Before when I heard rice, I thought rice patties, flooded," says Josh McKim, Geary County Economic Development Director.
Kansas doesn't have any rice production now, but this time next year, you can expect farmers will be growing thousands of acres of it.
Ventria CEO Scott Deeter explains, "What our technology does is it's able to instruct the rice plant on how to make protein in the seed and that's what our technology does."
Ventria will lease this building just west of Junction City from the city for 15 thousand dollars a month. The California based company will use the facility to process rice.
From there, developers will extract a high level of protein that will be used to make a product reducing childhood diarrhea.
Deeter says, "What we're doing is taking that rehydration formula and now adding proteins that are beneficial for these children so they can recover from their illness."
The new plant is expected to create more than 50 new jobs in Junction City, but farmers will benefit the most. Ventria will enter contracts with farmers to grow the rice needed for the project. In turn for their work, each farmer will be paid by the number of acres produced instead of the number of bushels.
And McKim says the number of partnerships formed to make this project work is what makes Kansas standout.
He says, "We've got such an incredible education system in our area that we really believe this is just the beginning of forming a technology-based cluster."
Ventria says it hope to plant its first crop this spring.
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