Farmers seek compensation for swede mixupJohn Hawkins Southland Federated Farmers President Allan Baird. An embarrassed PGG Wrightson Seeds says is it too early to say if hundreds of Southland farmers inadvertently sold a swede variety previously linked to livestock deaths will be compensated for the blunder. PGG Wrightson Seeds has contacted farmers who thought they were buying a new seed variety, Hawkestone yellow-fleshed Cleancrop swede, and told them a different line of white-fleshed swede, HT-S57, had been distributed to them instead. HT-S57 swede, linked to the deaths of animals in 2014, was supposedly phased out in 2016 and replaced with the Hawkestone swede variety. Southland Federated Farmers president Allan Baird said the stock deaths associated with the swedes in 2014 were "not entirely the swedes fault".

Source: Stuff February 25, 2018 01:52 UTC