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Edmontonians are up to their ears in counterfeit corn

Leave it to counterfeiters to come up with increasingly creative ways to make a buck at someone else's expense.

No longer content with designer handbags and perfumes, a group of copycats in Alberta has branched out into a relatively untapped goldmine.

The gold in that particular mine? Corn. More specifically, Taber corn, known to be the best in Canada thanks to the amount of sunshine that hits the region where it's grown.

Yes, the stuff we eat and transform into thousands of food-related items has become a boon for false merchants looking to capitalize off Taber's excellent reputation.

"We call it counterfeit Taber corn. They just get corn from somewhere else and call it Taber corn and that's how it works," David Jensen, Taber corn producer and president of the Alberta Corn Growers Association told QMI Agency. "And Edmonton is one of the worst places for it."

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Jensen said he's the only merchant who is supplying the Edmonton area at the moment.

He gets a head start on the competition thanks to his agricultural system: the business-savvy farmer covers his seeds in biodegradable plastic, which results in faster germination and gives him two weeks on the competition.

So far he's only sent a handful of pallets to his Edmonton salesfolks. A pallet contains 1,600 ears of corn.

But a peek around Edmonton's road stalls reveals a panoply of signs offering fresh Taber corn — many of which are, if not flat out lying, at the very least overstating the truth.

"It's been an ongoing problem since I've been in it," said Arnold Walker, one of five licensed Taber corn merchants in the area and a 13-year corn-selling veteran.

"Jensen is the only one supplying Taber corn at the present time and I don't know if the rest is fake corn or not but they certainly aren't selling under the regulations they should be."

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Walked told the paper he's heard of customers complain about the poor quality of the Taber corn they've supposedly purchased. It's a problem that could ultimately hurt the reputation of the genuine article.

So in order to ensure they're selling the real deal, Jensen said each stall must display a certificate of authenticity. If the merchants can't produce a certificate with all the proper signatures, it's a good sign they're up to their ears in shady practices.

While fake corn may not seem like it should hit the top of the counterfeit task squad list, the bamboozling brigands are threatening the economic survival of legitimate Taber corn farmers and merchants.

It's bad enough these opportunists are robbing producers of their profits. It would be even worse if they were allowed to compromise one of the country's great agricultural exports.