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Tue Aug 19, 2008 at 08:00:00 AM PDT
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This diary is a follow-up to one I posted earlier this week that might have had inaccurate information. Here's what I was able to come up with. From Global Seed Industry Concentration
With the January 2005 acquisition of Seminis for $1,400 million, Monsanto takes a dominant position in the fast-growing vegetable seed market - a previously untapped seed segment for Monsanto. Under a variety of brand names, Seminis supplies over 3,500 seed varieties to fruit and vegetable growers in 150 countries. The Seminis acquisition includes the following brands:
- Royal Sluis
- Petoseed
- Bruinsma
- Asgrow Vegetable Seeds
For Monsanto, "vegetable seed is the next logical strategic move" because it's a "high value, high growth segment in agriculture."13 According to Monsanto, seed and trait gross profit as percent of sales is higher for vegetables (64%) than for soybeans (63%) or for corn (57%). Monsanto now assumes a leading market share in the global vegetable seed market, where they were virtually invisible before:
Beans Monsanto controls 31% of the global seed market
Cucumbers Monsanto controls 38% of the global seed market
Hot Pepper Monsanto controls 34% of the global seed market
Sweet PepperMonsanto controls 29% of the global seed market
Tomato Monsanto controls 23% of the global seed market
Onions Monsanto controls 25% of the global seed market |
| Jill Richardson :: Monsanto Control of Seed Supply |
| As of 2005, when this report was written, here is a list of Monsanto's holdings:
Seminis
Emergent Genetics
American Seeds Inc.
Channel Bio Corp.
Crow's Hybrid Corn
Midwest Seed Genetics
Wilson Seeds
NC+Hybrids
Advanta Canola Seeds
Interstate Canola Seeds
Asgrow (soybean & corn)
Petoseed
Bruinsma
Holden's Foundation
Jacob Hartz
Hybritech
Calgene
Agracetus
Plant Genetics Inc.
Ameri-Can Pedigreed
Monsoy (Brazil)
First Line Seeds (Canada)
Plant Breeding Intl. (UK)
Agroceres (Brazil)
Cargill's intl. seed division
Dekalb Genetics (USA)
Custom Farm Seed
Sensako (South Africa)
Another paragraph that caught my eye in the report is as follows:
Farmers are being forced to apply greater amounts of herbicides on genetically modified herbicide tolerant crops because some weeds have developed resistance in the face of heavy reliance on herbicide tolerant crops. Benbrook finds that "reliance on a single herbicide, glyphosate, as the primary method for managing weeds on millions of acres planted to HT varieties" is the primary factor that requires farmers "to apply more herbicides per acre to achieve the same level of weed control." |
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