Washington, DC, USA
Febraury 18, 2010

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) today announced that Smith Seed Services, a seed company operating out of Halsey, Ore., has paid $2,600 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 two shipments of a grass seed mixture to Indiana and Michigan and one shipment of annual ryegrass seeds to Tennessee. A portion of the shipment to Tennessee was reshipped to Georgia, where it was officially sampled.

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

• false labeling of pure seed percentages and as to being a uniform “lot of seed”; 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, Indiana, and Michigan 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.

Website: http://www.ams.usda.gov

Published: February 18, 2010