Syngenta Ordered to Pay Farmers Over $200 Million

A federal jury has ordered Swiss giant Syngenta to pay $217.7 million to Kansas farmers after a verdict was announced last week in Kansas City.

The class action lawsuit was brought because of the Viptera line of corn seed Syngenta began selling to farmers in 2011.  At the time, Sygenta hadn’t received Chinese approval of the trait (MIR162) within the seed that gave it insect resistance.  China began rejecting U.S. grain shipments in 2013 because it detected the unapproved trait in corn.

China would go on to approve the trait in 2014 but farmers contended the damage had been done because of lower corn prices and lost sales.