For months Sutter County supervisors swung back and forth — as reflected by their changing votes — on the county's industrial hemp regulations before continuing the farm program with expanded maps that blocked out large swaths of land where hemp farming would be prohibited.
But between the map's approval and growers planting their crop, the areas allowing and banning hemp have changed. That's what one farm company has alleged in a lawsuit against Sutter County and its agricultural commissioner, accusing the agencies of stretching the "buffer zones" to benefit a private business and block the farm company from growing on land leased from a county supervisor.
A farm company operating under the name Iu-Mien Consulting & Investment, sued the county in July, accusing county officials, including Agricultural Commissioner Lisa Herbert, of changing the maps without notifying the public. That change put the land in question from just outside to just inside the perimeter of a restricted zone, a change that, according to the lawsuit, has already cost the company $300,000 and interfered with a $20 million contract for its hemp.
The lawsuit also claims county officials did so to benefit the owner of Butte Star Ranch, which operates as a private wedding venue and offers horse-riding lessons, but does not explicitly fall within the county's definition of a sensitive receptor, according to the lawsuit.
Read more at The Sacramento Bee
