Federal prosecutors say a southwestern Minnesota farmer reaped up to $46 million in payments selling conventionally-grown corn and soybeans that he told buyers were organic.
The federal prosecutor's office in Minneapolis on Monday announced James Clayton Wolf, of Jeffers, has been indicted by a grand jury with felony wire fraud, saying the rural Minnesota farmer was "engaged in a scheme" that defrauded grain buyers and undermined the nation's organic labeling system.
A charging document filed in U.S. District Court for Minnesota says between 2014 and 2020 Wolf used chemical fertilizers and pesticides to grow corn and soybeans in his rural Cottonwood County farm that he later sold as falsely labeled organic grain. In other instances, Wolf — who did not possess a license to purchase grain — bought non-organic grain that he, in turn, sold to buyers as organically farmed crops.
