The owners of Fat River Farm, an organic garden in the Lower 9th Ward, won their lawsuit against Orkin LLC, after one of its employees sprayed pesticides onto their crops and plants. The court victory was a big win for the community of local farmers, many of them based in the Lower 9th Ward, which has become home to many gardens since its catastrophic flooding in 2005.
In April 2022, the farm’s owners, Marguerite “Margee” Green and James Elliot Robinson, were inside their shotgun home when they heard a sound, like a leaf blower, they said. When they looked outside, they saw a uniformed Orkin employee using a fogger that cast a cloud of chemicals across their organic produce, flowers and chickens.
The couple walked outside and asked the pesticide technician for his paperwork. Turns out, he was supposed to be at a neighbor’s home. Realizing his mistake, the man told them that they would bear no cost for his service: as if the farm was lucky enough to receive a free service, Green recalled.
But for Green and Robinson, the misdirected bug spray, a broad-spectrum pesticide called “Suspend Polyzone,” marked a huge mistake four years ago — not only for the decade of couple’s work, but also the long-neglected Lower 9 and city’s larger organic-agricultural community.
Orkin maintains the jury made a wrongful ruling; the company intends to appeal.
The verdict, awarded last month, came shortly before an apt lesson in the importance of local gardens, and the safety protocols, or lack of them, that seem to govern our nation’s agriculture. Millions of people either had to give up lettuce entirely or rely on produce that came from trusted local growers, as the nation experienced a massive agricultural recall on contaminated lettuce, which seems to have been infected with cyclosporiasis, a parasite that caused a widespread outbreak of so-called “explosive diarrhea.”
“For me [farming] is also a really big part of figuring out how to deal with some of the instabilities and issues in our world,” Green said. “Helping feed our communities by putting healthy things into our bodies, treating the soil well.”
Green has a degree and more than two decades of experience in agriculture, and was inspired by her own stint with food insecurity after Hurricane Katrina. In 2017, she founded SPROUT, a nonprofit organization that created a community of local farmers and gardeners who could work together to support each other and sell their harvests.
She began managing Fat River Farm in 2009. Today, Green operates the small home farm on Flood Street and two other garden locations in the Lower 9 to provide produce and herbs to local farmers markets and flowers for weddings.
But in 2022, the farm suffered immediate and long-term effects. The minute the fogger began emitting pesticide, none of the plants exposed to the spray could be marketed as organic for three years — leaving the farm at severe financial risk.
The two farmers themselves suffered some minor medical issues including a rash and headache and ended up purchasing organic produce for their household instead of walking out their door and picking it from their garden.
Though Orkin initially admitted to the mistake, the company did not attempt to resolve any of the harm caused to the farm by the incident, Green said. So Fat River Farms was forced to file suit against Orkin the following year.
From the defense mounted by Orkin, it became apparent that the company was suspicious about how organic farms work and how they must be managed. “They didn’t think our clients were telling the truth about their gardening operations, what they actually doing with their products and essentially put them on trial as if they were lying,” said lawyer Megan Kiefer, who represented Green and Robinson, taking the case to trial before a jury in the courtroom of Judge Ellen Hazeur, of Orleans Parish Civil District Court.
Orkin went on the attack, paying high-priced witnesses to question the farm’s practices. Ultimately, the jury rendered a jury in favor of Fat River Farms. “The jury saw through all those arguments,” Kiefer said.
Green and Robinson were awarded a judgment of $332,300 for physical and mental suffering, medical bills and economic losses sustained to the farm.
Green and Robinson have spent the past four years rebuilding what was lost in their precious garden next door. “Treating ecosystems well, it’s really foundational for me,” Green said
For weeks afterward, the residue on plants, designed to stay active for 90 days according to the label, was able to kill welcome garden visitors like monarch and swallowtail butterflies and fireflies, it harmed earthworms and resulted in less insect food for local songbirds.
Because the garden sits in a neighborhood that is surrounded by water on three sides, runoff can easily reach, and affect, fish and other aquatic creatures as well.
“We stopped seeing indicators of a healthy ecosystem,” Green said, recalling the ecological diversity she saw before the incident. “We had frogs, tadpoles, and snakes. Our snake that we knew was in our yard days before — we truly did not see it again until 2025.”
Plants doused in insecticide can also see a drop in seed production because of the loss of important pollinators like bees, which can be killed as they land on treated plants in upcoming days and weeks. Basically, by decimating all insect populations, pesticides also disrupt a delicate balance — seasoned gardeners cultivate the presence of certain bugs, like ladybugs and bees and spiders, to reduce certain bugs that are harmful to plants.
Though Fat River Farm is back healthy; its owners have learned first-hand the legacy that a recklessly sprayed pesticide can leave behind, they say.
They also cannot rejoice in the verdict quite yet, because of Orkin’s appeal.
For Green, the focus is on the future, as she continues to educate and support farming in Louisiana.
“It’s not just about supporting organic agriculture. It’s about supporting local agriculture, showing up for the people that grow food in your community” Green said. “We need to be investing in local food systems so that those local food systems can support us all.”
