Washington, DC
September 18, 2008
AMS No. 180-08
The U.S. Department of Agriculture
today announced that a Madison, Ga., seed company has paid USDA
$14,675 to settle alleged violations of the Federal Seed Act.
The company, Pennington Seed, Inc., settled the case in
agreement with officials from USDA’s Agricultural Marketing
Service (AMS). The company neither admitted nor denied the
charges.
The case, resolved by the settlement, involved 14 shipments of
arrowleaf clover, grass seed mixtures, red fescue, and tall
fescue seed to Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, and Virginia. The
shipments to Maryland and Virginia were reshipped by other firms
to Pennsylvania where they were officially sampled.
The alleged violations, while not the same for all shipments,
were:
- false labeling as to pure
seed, germination percentages, rate of occurrence of
noxious-weed seeds, test date, kind and variety name; and
- failure to label the
presence of noxious-weed seeds.
AMS administers the act with
the help of state seed officials. Seed regulatory officials in
Georgia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania 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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