Aventis Signs Settlement with Farmers

Aventis Signs Settlement with Farmers
DES MOINES, Iowa--Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller announced on Jan.23 that Aventis CropScience signed an agreement with 17 states to mitigatelosses due to StarLink corn. Aventis, as well as the farmers' legalrepresentatives, said they were satisfied with the settlement.
"We are pleased to have reached this agreement," said an Aventisspokesperson. "We appreciate the states' leadership and will continue towork together to resolve the StarLink issue." According to the Aventisclaims procedure, corn growers meeting specific requirements will receive 25cents per bushel of contaminated corn, including contaminated buffer corn(non-genetically modified corn grown within 660 feet of StarLink). Aventis isalso reimbursing smaller amounts for corn that does that does not contain Cry9Cbut was inadvertently commingled with contaminated corn before farmers wereaware of restrictions.
Miller said he was pleased about the formal agreement and that Aventis can nowbe held legally accountable for corn growers' losses. "Aventis expresslyagreed that it is obligated to compensate growers and elevators for loss invalue resulting from StarLink corn, buffer corn and commingled corn,"Miller stated. "That means the states have clear standing to go to court ifAventis fails to live up to its obligations." The agreement will beenforced for a period of four years. All requests for claims to Aventis must besubmitted no later than Feb. 15, 2001.
The states that signed agreement include Iowa, Alabama, Illinois, Indiana,Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico,North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Claims procedures andforms can be found at www.StarLinkcorn.com.For more information, visit www.state.ia.us/government/ag.