(1) No person who labels for sale in Nebraska agricultural, vegetable, or flower seeds shall sell such seeds in Nebraska unless he or she holds a valid seed permit. Application for the permit shall be made to the Department of Agriculture on forms prescribed and furnished by the department. Application forms shall be submitted to the department accompanied by an annual registration fee based on the number of pounds of agricultural, vegetable, or flower seed the applicant labeled and sold during the preceding calendar year. Registrations shall be renewed on or before January 1 of each year. If a person fails to renew the registration by January 31 of each year, such person shall also be required to pay a delinquency fee of twenty percent per month of the amount of the fee due, not to exceed one hundred percent of the annual registration fee. The purpose of the additional delinquency fee is to cover the administrative costs associated with collecting fees. All money collected as a delinquency fee shall be remitted to the State Treasurer for credit to the Nebraska Seed Administrative Cash Fund.

The annual registration fee shall be:

Fee:	Applicant sold:
Twenty-five dollars	Less than ten thousand pounds of
	agricultural seed (other than
	lawn and turf seed);
Fifty dollars	Ten thousand or more pounds of
	agricultural seed (other than lawn
	and turf seed) and less than two
	hundred fifty thousand pounds of
	any kind of seed;
One hundred dollars	Two hundred fifty thousand or
	more pounds and less than five
	hundred thousand pounds of seeds;
Two hundred fifty dollars	Five hundred thousand or more
	pounds and less than one
	million pounds of seeds;
Three hundred fifty dollars	One million or more pounds
	and less than five million
	pounds of seeds;
Seven hundred fifty dollars	Five million or more pounds of seeds.

(2) Subsection (1) of this section shall not apply if the agricultural, vegetable, or flower seeds being labeled and sold are of the breeder or foundation seed classes of varieties developed by publicly financed research agencies intended for the purpose of increasing the quantity of seed available.

(3) The director shall refuse to issue a permit when the application for such permit is not in compliance with the Nebraska Seed Law or any rules and regulations adopted and promulgated pursuant to such law and may cancel any permit when it is subsequently found to be in violation of any provision of such law, rule, or regulation or when the director has satisfactory evidence that the person has used fraudulent or deceptive practices in an attempted evasion of the law, rule, or regulation, except that no permit shall be refused or canceled until the person shall have been given an opportunity to be heard before the director.