Market Farming

[Leigh Hauter <bullrunfarm AT hughes.net>]

Since I was under the impression that Monsanto now owns well over 50% 
of seed producing companies (the number might be up in the 70-80% 
range) I thought this thread  a little like  yelling  'the barn is on 
fire' after its been reduced to smoke and ashes.

Never the less

since this information isn't top secret and you no longer need a 
degree in library science (or teach a graduate course in research 
skills like I did back in the pre-computer age) Anyone with a 
computer and an internet hook up can find out what seed companies 
Monsanto owns.

(while the word Monsanto makes many of us hiss, myself included, I'm 
sure Monsanto is very proud of what they do and actually brags about 
the companies they have come to own. - good for stock prices on wall 
street I'm sure).

So here's what I found out with very little research on the internet.

Googling Seminis I found a Monsanto button at the bottom of their 
home page which when clicked  got Monsanto's home page.

At the top of Monsanto's page was a button that got you to a list of 
the companies they completely own  (I don't know if they own part of 
others, or what the rule is on that is).

Monsanto totally owns 19 major seed companies plus a number of other 
farm related concerns.

However, since our interests here are primarily vegetables seeds 
Monsanto was very helpful and  separated its vegetable seed producing 
companies from the others. Monsanto lists as totally owned only two 
major seed companies --  Seminis and  De Ruiter Seeds.

that, though is not the complete truth.

From there I went to another page, this one titled, I believe, 'our 
brands'  and at the bottom was a vegetable button and , I should have 
written this down as I did it,  I think I got to something that said 
'Vegetable Seeds' which gives a page of verbage about  how they are 
fighting the good fight for a better tasting world and listed some of 
their recent 'breakthroughs'  (Bellaverde broccoli, rainbow carrots, 
Ruby Jewel sweet corn, cheddar cauliflower  (I saw that recently in 
someone's catalog and debated buying it) sweetbites sweet peppers to 
mention a few.


And then it says at the bottom--

 'Monsanto's Vegetable Division is represented in the market place by 
two main brands: Seminis and  De Ruiter Seeds.'  Apparently Monsanto 
divides their vegetable seeds into two categories.  open-field  which 
goes to Seminis and  protected-culture (hothouse, greenhouse, netted 
structures)  that goes to De Ruiter.

Then there's another button that connects you to their 'other 
webpages'  and one of the webpages says Monsanto vegetable seeds 
worldwide.  Clicking on that gets you a world map that you can click 
to find seed companies in your area,  I did that for Virginia but 
just got a map of north American and more buttons for Canada, the US 
and Mexico.

Clicking the US got some more verbage about how wonderful they are 
but at the bottom is some important information.

'Monsanto's vegetables are represented through several brands such as 
Seminis and  De Ruiter and other regional brands'.

So, what do we have.  If its Seminis or De Ruiter its Monsanto,  but 
its not limited to those companies.  trying to decode that last 
paragraph can either mean its just those two and  many regional 
companies or it means those two national and maybe some more national 
companies plus the regionals.

In other words,  Monsanto is well entrenched in the seed market. If 
you are buying commodity seeds they now own 17 of the larger brands. 
For vegetables, Monsanto has been putting  much of its efforts into 
two brands but they are by no means limited to those two.  they own a 
number of regional brands and maybe some other national ones  (more 
research is necessary to find that out and I don't have the time now).

and there you have it.

In a world where Walmart is now the largest organic food outlet of 
course a company like Monsanto would control a very large slice of 
seed companies.

 The truth is, whether we like it or not  our world now has a higher 
rate of ownership concentration than when President Teddy Roosevelt 
made an issue of busting the trusts back in the beginning of the 20th 
century.