A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by more than a hundred farmers. Things were so bad for farmers in the late 1980s, a government bailout program was created to let them write off some of their debt. It saved some farmers from losing everything, but they say the deals they struck with the U-S Agriculture Department are poorly worded and confusing. District Judge Rodney Webb of Fargo agreed — but he also rejected the argument by farmers, including some in Iowa, that they should be freed from paying back those farm loans. The farmers claimed in their suit they should only have to pay if they’ve since quit farming, or sold the land for which the loans were written during the ten-year terms of the contracts. The judge says they have to pay the government back for some of that debt they wrote down.
