It shall be the duty of the Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries, who may act individually or through his authorized agents to:
(1) Inspect, sample, make analyses of and test agricultural, vegetable, herb, tree, shrub and flower seeds transported, sold, offered or exposed for sale or distributed within this state for sowing or planting purposes, at such time and place and to such extent as he may deem necessary to determine whether said seeds are in compliance with the provisions of this article and notify promptly the person who transported, sold, offered or exposed the seed for sale of any violation;
(2) Enter upon any public or private premises during regular business hours in order to have access to seeds subject to this article and the rules and regulations thereunder;
(3) Issue and enforce a written or printed "stop-sale," "suspension from sale" or "nonuse" order to the owner or custodian of any lot of agricultural, vegetable, flower, tree, shrub or herb seed which is found to be in violation of any of the provisions of this article, which shall prohibit further sale or use of such seed until such officer has evidence that the law has been complied with; provided, that in respect to seeds which have been denied sale, the owner or custodian of such seeds shall have the right to appeal from such order to a court of competent jurisdiction where the seeds are found, requesting a judgment as to the justification of said order and for the discharge of such seed from the order prohibiting this sale in accordance with the findings of the court;
(4) Establish and maintain or make provision for seed testing and sampling facilities, employ qualified persons and incur such expenses as may be necessary to comply with these provisions;
(5) Make or provide for making purity and germination tests of such seeds for farmers and dealers on request, prescribe rules governing such testing and fix and collect charges for such tests. The fees collected for making service tests shall be paid into the Agricultural Fund;
(6) Cooperate with the United States Department of Agriculture in seed law enforcement; and
(7) Publish the result of laboratory and field analyses and tests, information shown on analyses tags or labels by seedsmen and information pertaining to violations of this article.
Last modified: May 3, 2021