PGG Wrightson will compensate farmers for bad seeds

Swedes grown from PGG Wrightson Seeds' seeds. Photo: PGGW Seeds

The company responsible for selling seed linked to the deaths of hundreds of dairy cows in 2014 says it will provide compensation.

Many Southland and Otago farmers were sold the wrong swede seed, and inadvertently grew crops linked to the deaths in 2014.

Early this year the company said an investigation showed it had made an error in its supply chain and the wrong line of seed had been processed.

"Straight human error" led to 556 farmers with the wrong crops in the ground.

Yesterday, the company attended a meeting of about 150 farmers in Gore.

PGG Wrightson Seeds general manager New Zealand David Green said the meeting covered a variety of subjects, but one the questions farmers had was to do with compensation.

Mr Green said the company had made a mistake, and in some cases there would have to be "change in some of the feeding management of these crops".More supplementary feed might be needed, for example.

"Those sort of situations are the things that we will entertain in terms of claims."

The company had not yet "honed down on how that process will work".

However it was conscious of being equitable and consistent.

"We want to think through that process very carefully, and then when we're in a position to communicate that process, we're going to do that directly with the 556 farmers."

Mr Green said he hoped that would happen in the next few weeks.

It was too early to say what the cost would be to the company.

"It's really, really difficult to [estimate] some sort of number."

david.loughrey@odt.co.nz