Mid-South farmers filed a lawsuit against a company that they said sold them fake soybean seeds at a convention.
(WMC) –
Mid-South farmers filed a lawsuit against a company that they said sold them fake soybean seeds at a convention.
A group of African-American farmers from Louisiana and the Mid-South, say that Stine Seed Company purposefully switched seeds in order to sell black farmers a subpar product at the Mid-South Farm & Gin Show in March 2017.
Despite above average rainfall, experienced black farmers saw limited soybean yield from the Stine seeds during the 2017 harvest.
“Mother nature doesn’t discriminate,” President of Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association Thomas Burrell said. “It doesn’t rain on white farms but not black farms. Insects don’t [only] attack black farmers’ land…why is it then that white farmers are buying Stein seed and their yield is 60, 70, 80, and 100 bushels of soybeans and black farmers who are using the exact same equipment with the exact same land, all of a sudden, your seeds are coming up 5, 6, and 7 bushels?”
After losing millions of dollars, the farmers took the seeds to experts at Mississippi State University to have them tested. They say the tests show the seeds sold to the black farmers were not certified Stine seeds.
Source: Black farmers were intentionally sold fake seeds in Memphis, lawsuit says