WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2010 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) today announced that Pennington Seed Inc., a seed company operating out of Madison, Ga., has paid $21,775 to settle alleged violations of the Federal Seed Act. The company settled the case in agreement with AMS officials. The company neither admitted nor denied the charges brought against them.
This settlement resolves a case which involved 11 shipments of grass seed mixtures to Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Portions of the shipments to Alabama and Maryland were subsequently shipped to Indiana and Pennsylvania, where the seed was officially sampled. Six shipments of tall fescue seeds were shipped to Alabama and Georgia. A portion of the shipment to Alabama was subsequently shipped to Kentucky where it was officially sampled. Two shipments of annual ryegrass seeds were shipped to Georgia and Texas. One shipment of India mustard seeds was shipped to Georgia. The alleged violations, while not the same for all shipments, were as follows:
- false labeling of pure, weed, and other crop seed percentages, germination percentages, date of test, the presence of noxious-weed seeds and rate of occurrence, origin, kind, and variety name;-failure to label the component of a mixture; -shipping seed containing noxious-weed seeds in excess of State’s limit;-failure to keep or supply complete records of the seed; and-falsely labeling a seed mixture as a variety name.
AMS administers the act with the help of state seed officials. Seed regulatory officials in Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas cooperated with AMS in making the investigations. The Federal Seed Act is a truth-in-labeling law designed to protect farmers and consumers who buy seed.
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