Like other U.S. farmers, plaintiff Lucas S. claims that he never would have purchased the GMO corn seed if he had known China was denying U.S. corn shipments containing the genetically modified corn. This denial by the world’s third largest importer of U.S. corn has cost American farmers billions of dollars in losses, according to Lucas and dozens of other U.S. farmers filing class action lawsuits against Syngenta.

Lucas owns one of nearly 400,000 farms in America that grows corn, and relies on his crops to make a living. The U.S. exports about 20 percent of its domestic corn production to other countries, predominantly to China, Japan and Mexico, his Syngenta corn lawsuit explains.