The recent recall of two varieties of Limagrain’s Roundup-resistant canola sounds familiar to some Saskatchewan farmers taking the company to court for allegedly selling them defective canola in 1993.
But a spokesperson for Limagrain says the two cases are “totally unconnected.
“I can see farmers saying it is the same marketing group but the case involves a different company,” said Gary Bauman, former sales manager for Pride Brand Seeds in Saskatoon.
The farmers who launched the court action against Pride Brand Seeds, now under Limagrain’s marketing umbrella, felt the high-yielding Cyclone canola didn’t live up to its billing because of poor germination.
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Failed to produce
“We put the seed in the ground and it never came up,” said Eric Pankratz of Foam Lake, one of the 45 farmers involved in the lawsuit.
Their lawyer, Don Woloshyn, said the case is still in the examination-for-discovery stage. He’s hoping the case could go before a judge sometime this winter.
Both Pankratz and Woloshyn said they’ll pay close attention to what happens with the latest situation.
“The interesting thing to me is that when they found out in this case that they distributed seed that was not satisfactory, they issued a recall.
“In our case, not only did they not recall the seed, but they’re fighting tooth and nail,” Woloshyn said.
In January 1994, Bauman, then sales manager for Pride Brand Seeds in Saskatoon, said the company wasn’t considering compensation for farmers because the seed met certified standards. In a cool spring and summer that year, Cyclone fared no worse than other varieties, he said.
Groupe Limagrain is headquartered in France with annual sales of $1.1 billion (Cdn.)
In 1990, Limagrain purchased Agseed, an Australian firm conducting canola and sunflower research, launching its spring canola breeding program.
In 1993, it acquired KingAgro, an Ontario seed company, from a French company Sanofi Inc. That deal was made in partnership with the Saskatchewan Opportunities Corporation.
KingAgro was marketing Pride Brand Seed, which sells Cyclone canola, when the dispute over Cyclone’s performance arose.
When Limagrain took over KingAgro, the legal issue remained in the hands of Sanofi, Bauman said.
“Sanofi purchased KingAgro and then sold it to Limagrain,” he said, “but the Cyclone is a Sanofi issue.”
The court case is being handled out of Sanofi’s New York office, Bauman said.
