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Stine Seed Being Sued by Black Farmers
USAgNet - 07/20/2018

A group of black soybean farmers from the South says a company intentionally sold them defective seeds in an elaborate scheme to place them at a disadvantage because of their race. According to the Washington Post, a lawsuit filed by African American farmers from Tennessee and Mississippi accuses Stine Seed Co. of selling them seeds they were told were of good quality and would bring successful harvests. But despite fertile soil, ample rain, good equipment and adequate farming capabilities, the farmers say, their yields were significantly lower than expected. Farmers from a 2,200-acre farm in Rome, Miss., say they lost more than $1 million after an extremely poor harvest.

The lawsuit says that after the farmers complained about the poor harvest, a company employee told them that the farms were having yield problems.

"They've been farming all their lives. They're capable farmers. They had new equipment. It's not that they had antique tractors .?.?. But for the bad seeds, these farmers would've been yielding optimal yields," said Thomas Burrell, president of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association, a Memphis nonprofit group that advocates for black farmers in the South.

Stine Seed has denied allegations that the company targeted black farmers and sold them subpar products. The Iowa-based company is seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, filed in April in federal court in Tennessee. Calling the accusations "inflammatory," the company said the farmers were unable to present evidence proving that they were treated unfairly because of their race.

Myron Stine, president of the company, said the lawsuit "is without merit and factually unsupportable." He said Stine Seed has conducted an internal investigation and found no evidence of racial discrimination. A spokeswoman said that the company provides thousands of seeds to customers every planting season and that those products cover millions of acres across the country.

The Post reports that the lawsuit says the farmers bought about $100,000 worth of soybean seeds from Stine Seed in the spring of 2017 after attending an annual farm show in Memphis. At the show they met a district sales manager who told them the company had soybean varieties suitable for growing conditions in Mississippi. At some point after the purchase, the farmers allege, the company switched the certified seeds the farmers thought they were buying with inferior ones. That meant the farmers ultimately paid far more than what the inferior seeds were worth, the lawsuit alleges.


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