Farm firm pays out for duff seeds

Farmers in arable areas including Holderness, East Yorkshire, sowed a fairly new oilseed rape variety called Ritz last spring, looking for a quick catch-up crop after a poor winter, but found themselves waiting and waiting for a result.

Dozens of farmers lost time and the cost of seed and some simply had no crop to sell last summer.

The seed came from Sweden, via a Cambridge-based business called Senova.

Yesterday the National Farmers Union announced that the biggest seed merchant in the UK, Frontier Agriculture, had agreed to settle with farmers it was representing. Nobody at Senova was available for comment.

A NFU statement approved by Frontier said: "Frontier was keen to investigate and address the issues associated with Ritz, retaining and funding an independent crop consultancy to produce individual reports for their farmers and then negotiating fair compensation.

"Some growers who purchased seed from other merchants are still negotiating this issue.

"We hope others will follow Frontier's lead."