Hot-button world issues like genetically modified crops and China’s huge sway over the U.S. economy are being brought home to the Delta in a recently filed lawsuit.
More than 150 Delta corn farmers are suing ag giant Syngenta over genetically modified seed that prevented them from being able to export to China.
The lawsuit, filed Sept. 27 in federal court, says U.S. corn farmers lost billions after the world’s most populous nation refused to accept shipments containing even trace amounts of the modified grain. It’s one of hundreds of similar suits from throughout the nation.
Being a commodity, corn from different growers is mixed together at distribution centers, from which it is shipped all over the world.
Syngenta released a genetically engineered corn trait in the United States in 2009 aimed at controlling worms, the lawsuit said. It was first known as “Viptera” and then a second generation known as “Duracade” was released in 2014.
The United States, Brazil, Argentina and other countries had approved it, and Syngenta submitted the corn trait to the Chinese government in March 2010 but it had not been approved for sale there, the lawsuit said.
It was only planted on about 3 percent of U.S. acres, but the lawsuit claims Syngenta did not take steps to keep it from mixing with other corn and that China blocked importation of the genetically modified corn, even in trace amounts.
That move in early 2014 “effectively blocked” the vast majority of corn from what was previously the third-largest export market for U.S. corn, the lawsuit said. Corn prices dropped because, without being able to sell to China, there was a glut in the U.S. market, the lawsuit said. All the farmers listed in the lawsuit grew corn in 2013 and 2014, the suit said.
It called the release of the corn before getting Chinese approval “intentional and reckless” and alleges Syngenta misinformed farmers into believing approval was imminent. It said then-Syngenta CEO Michael Mack said during a 2012 earnings conference call that “[t]here isn’t outstanding approval for China, which we expect to have quite frankly within (a) matter of a couple days. ... We know of no issue with that whatsoever.”
The lawsuit said the National Grain and Feed Association estimated it cost the U.S. corn market $1 billion to $3 billion.
The lawsuit seeks damages to be determined by a jury.
In all, 38 pages of the 62-page lawsuit are devoted to simply listing all of the 157 plaintiffs; it’s not a class-action suit because the farms are listed individually. They come from Bolivar, Coahoma, Desoto, Humphreys, Lafayette, Marshall, Panola, Rankin, Sharkey, Sunflower, Tallahatchie, Tate, Tunica and Washington counties.
Brennan Chapman of Chapman, Lewis & Swan of Clarksdale and Warren Bell of Westerfield, Janoush & Bell of Cleveland are representing the farmers.
Syngenta hasn’t responded in court yet, but in another similar case it argued that “this litigation constitutes an unprecedented effort to hold a company liable for selling a U.S.-approved product in the U.S., simply because the product was not yet approved by a foreign country like China,” as quoted in The Des Moines Register.
I’m not a lawyer nor a farmer, but I can predict one thing: This suit will drag out far longer than you can store grain in a bin.
