The U.S. Department of Agriculture today announced that a Purdy, Missouri, seed company has paid USDA $1,100 to settle alleged violations of the Federal Seed Act. 

The company, Schallert Brothers Seed Company, settled the case in agreement with officials from USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service.  The company neither admitted nor denied the charges.

The case resolved by the settlement involved three shipments consisting of Kentucky 31 tall fescue seed alleged to be in violation of the Federal Seed Act, one shipment to Kentucky and two shipments to Alabama, and one was reshipped into Georgia where it was officially sampled.

The alleged violations, while not the same for all shipments, were:

• false labeling as to noxious-weed seed;

• false labeling as to inert matter, other crop seed, and pure seed.

AMS administers the act with the help of state seed officials. Seed regulatory officials in Alabama, Georgia, and Kentucky 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.