Local farmers are invited to town hall events in Stuart and Guthrie Center this week, to discuss the Iowa Corn Lawsuit.

Jacquelyn Garay, an attorney representing the Washington D.C. law firm Mauro and Archer will be talking to local residents about the lawsuit which has already been joined by more than 45,000 farmers around the country.

Garay tells Raccoon Valley Radio their lawsuit claims the seed company Syngenta lied to farmers about a strain of corn being able to be sold to China, and that the subsequent fallout led to overall lower corn prices. “In 2009, Syngenta released the genetically engineered corn trait MIR 162 into the United States market, and it had originally been marketed without import approval. Then in 2012, Syngenta’s CEO said they would have import approval in a matter of days, but it actually took two years to get that approval. In the meantime, the strain of corn became widely used by farmers and China ended up destroying many shipments of corn containing that strain of corn.”

Garay says the lawsuit is seeking approximately one dollar for each bushel of affected MIR162 corn to be paid to participating farmers.

Syngenta’s corporate lawyers have said they believe the lawsuit is without merit.

Garay will meet with local farmers tomorrow at noon at Guthrie Center’s Mary J. Barnett Memorial Library, and Wednesday at noon at the Country Kitchen restaurant in Stuart.

She’ll tell us more about the meetings and the lawsuit today on Let’s Talk Guthrie County. It airs during the 9 a.m., noon and 5 p.m. hours on K107.9 and www.raccoonvalleyradio.com.