By Shelly Baskin/Drew Adams
Murray, KY – An environmental group is suing a pair of Purchase area farmers over subsidies they received during a two-year period for growing corn and soybeans in Land Between the Lakes. Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics want a judge to order farmers Kerry Underhill and Bobby Cunningham to repay farm subsidies they received from the government. At issue is whether Underhill Farms in Cadiz, and Cunningham Farms in Murray, should have been eligible for federal farm subsidies on their crops between Jan. 1, 2008 and March 19, 2010. The environmental group's executive director Andy Stahl says the farmers had leases with the National Wild Turkey Federation, not the U.S. Forest Service, making them ineligible for the subsidies. U.S. District Judge Thomas B. Russell in Paducah unsealed the lawsuit Friday afternoon after the federal government declined to intervene in the case. Russell struck down the agreement between the government and the federation in early 2010. He ruled the Forest Service could not delegate its power to enter into lease agreements with private entities. Stahl says the current lawsuit is likely to be dismissed because of documents that uphold the farmers' claims to the subsidies.