Am I the last to know?

[nittygrittydirtdigger]

While looking for heirloom seeds today I came across a website that gave this link to Seminis, apparently an offshoot of Monsanto (home of the terminator seeds). There are some names on the list of their customers that really shocked me. Does anyone know more details about this? Is Johnny's Select Seeds really buying from a Monsanto company?

Where do you buy decent heirloom seeds?

http://us.seminis.com/products/hg_dealer.asp

 

[herbsherbsflowers]

Hi,

Barbara Kingsolver writes about this on her website for the book Animal Vegetable Miracle. Here is an excerpt here:

As we wait out winter, sustaining ourselves on seed catalogs and ridiculous ambitions for this years garden (it will of course be better than ever), were grateful to the seed suppliers that keep our dreams and germplasm alive. At the top of our list is Seed Savers Exchange (Decorah, Iowa, seedsavers.org), for its spectacular catalog and this groups devotion to collecting and saving heirloom vegetables. We also order from companies in our regionSouthern Exposure Seed Exchange (Mineral, Va., southernexposure.com) and The Cooks Garden (Warminster, Pa., cooksgarden.com), to name twobecause what grows well for them usually works for us. Other favorites include Fedco, John Scheepers, Peaceful Valley, Seeds of Change, Johnnys, Territorial, Nichols, and Stokes. The list is long, the offerings are beautiful, and the choices remain reassuringly diverse.
In Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, we discussed the worlds shrinking seed banks and how agribusiness giants are promoting that trend: patenting germplasm, removing varieties from the market, buying out smaller companies. We warned home gardeners that when they place their orders from many small seed houses (including some of those named above), they rarely suspect theyre likely buying from Monsanto. A gaggle of upset readers mistakenly understood this to mean those companies had been bought out. Pardon us for being unclear: small seed companies often act as distributors for other growers, rather than producing all their own seeds in-house. Some vegetable varieties (including many garden standards) may now be procured only from the corporations that own the patents. Thus, a seed order placed at Johnnys or Territorial, Nichols or Stokes (or, just about anywhere else) will likely be filled with seeds grown by several different producers, possibly including Monsanto.
Some small houses, notably Fedco, have taken a firm stand against using Monsanto seeds, even though this meant dropping certain popular varieties from the catalog. Others are trying to fill the gaps by producing more of their own seed. If you absolutely dont want anything from Monsanto, call your seed suppliers and ask about their sources. Theyll probably be happy to know you care. Seed-savers hold our future food in their hands.


Carol Durusau

 

[davaroo]

Okay I'll bite and play devils advocate - what is so wicked about Monsanto?

 

[curly_kate]

Personally, I prefer to support small companies that are trying to preserve agricultural diversity, rather than giant corporations who are trying to get everyone to buy the varieties of seeds that they have messed with. But that's just me.

 

[davaroo]

Personally, I prefer to support small companies that are trying to preserve agricultural diversity, rather than giant corporations who are trying to get everyone to buy the varieties of seeds that they have messed with. But that's just me.

SO Monsanto has somehow "messed with" the seeds I buy.
Like there's some huge seed conspiracy at work, you mean?
What is behind this ministrations? What are they supposed to be doing, anyway, that I need to know about?

I wonder if the NPGS has heard about this?

 

[nittygrittydirtdigger]

Okay, I'm new here, so I don't want to come off as a raving lunatic when I'm really a mild-mannered granny who is just trying to leave the world a little better than I came into it, while feeding my family healthfully.

Here'a a couple links to articles about Monsanto, but if you don't feel like reading the whole thing, here's the crux of it.

"With Monsanto's terminator technology, they will sell seeds to farmers to plant crops. But these seeds have been genetically-engineered so that when the crops are harvested, all new seeds from these crops are sterile (e.g., dead, unusable)."

Additionally, "(Mr Schmeiser) never purchased a product from Monsanto. Never. However his field was next to a field of canola that used Monsanto seed and products. They cross pollinated and Monsanto now says what grows in Mr. Schmeiser's field actually belongs to them because his field was cross pollinated with theirs. "

http://www.ethicalinvesting.com/monsanto/terminator.shtml

http://foodchronicles.blogspot.com/2007/01/monsanto-problem.html

 

[nittygrittydirtdigger]

I read Kingsolver's thought-provoking book. That's one of the reasons that I was so shocked to see Johnny's Select Seeds on the list of Monsanto customers. I'm going to send them an email and ask them about their relationship with Monsanto, and their position on terminator seeds.

 

[herbsherbsflowers]

Monsanto also creates Genetically Modified Organisms one of which is corn which has the genes of BT built into it. Unfortunately, It has BT all the time not just when the corn borers are attacking. All parts of it have BT. The pollen blows around everywhere and lands on butterfly weed which grows alongside the corn fields. When Monarch butterfly larvae eat the butterfly weed they die because the pollen makes them sick. Monsanto says this is not happening. But Monarch populations continue to decline.

 

[wifezilla]

I don't want to come off as a raving lunatic

That's MY job

 

[digitS']

There seems to be a common thought that seed catalog companies are growing their own seed. It also looks to me that the catalog companies, themselves, encourage this notion. I suspect that the reality is that they grow very, very little generally.

First of all, they are in the retail sales business. That, in itself, must take a lot of corporate resources and focus.

Next, imagine that a particular hybrid is a popular favorite. We know that a hybrid is the product of 2 (or more) different parent lines. Who owns these parents and who is doing the hybridizing? It isn't likely to be the 10 or 20 seed companies that are selling the hybrid seed. It is one seed company that is paying folks to walk around with paintbrushes and bags, spreading pollen and isolating flowers. The product of their efforts is being distributed thru catalog sales.

If you have a favorite variety, hybrid or otherwise, and Monsanto buys the seed company that produces it - what are you going to do? You can take a principled stand and refuse to ever grow that variety again. Maybe I haven't thought this issue thru but I've continued to buy some seed even after ownership has been snatched up by Monsanto. And, consolidation in the seed "industry" has been the name of the game recently, just like in so many other industries.

If you go entirely with heirloom seed, you gotta admit that there were reasons why some varieties fell into disfavor. Maybe it was the processing, storage, and transportation methods of the food industry. But, some of the reasons for obsolescence apply to you, the gardener, rather than the food industry.

Often, new varieties have been better adapted to the growing conditions of certain areas of the country. Heirlooms can be very restricted in their performance. It isn't always the case. I mean, if the Brandywine tomato could only grow well in the Brandywine valley of Pennsylvania and northern Delaware, gardeners elsewhere wouldn't have much interest in this variety.

Adaptability is important to my gardening success. I grow some new varieties, some hybrids, and some heirlooms. In fact, for the last 15 years, I've grown a family heirloom tomato my grandmother grew during the Depression. It is one of 6 or 8 tomato varieties I grow. Fortunately Grandmother's tomato is happy here, nearly 2,000 miles from where she grew it and hundreds of miles from where my uncle kept it going for several decades.

I ate one of the first 2 to ripen on the plants just this morning! My wife had the other one. It is her favorite tomato (she likes them on the mild side) but her family wasn't even in the United States when Grandmother was growing these in her garden.

There's some "diversity" in my gardening, I'd like to think .

Steve