Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Liz <liz@allslash.org>]

At 01:48 PM 4/1/2008, you wrote:
> I just returned
> from the local Farmers' Market, where one of the vendors told me that
> their usual seed supplier has quit the seed business in favor of more
> profitable farming (?).  Anyone else seen this?
>  

Fedco Seeds has a good blurb on Monsanto's buyout of Seminis, the world's
largest seed producer at

http://www.fedcoseeds.com/seeds/monsanto.htm. What they don't point
out is that if you can't sell any more to the largest buyer because you
aren't growing the varieties they demand, you might as well find some
other crop. Fedco and and couple of other small seed companies have their
own growers, but that market doesn't begin to compete with Monsanto and
DuPont.

It isn't as widely known that Monsanto just acquired De Ruiter Seeds, a
Dutch company that sells widely across Europe--here is their press
release:

http://www.monsanto.com/deruiterseeds/default.asp?WT.svl=2

Liz in SW VA
http://life-as-a-spectator-sport.com