Who owns your tomato?

[marmar]

from Grist Magazine's Gristmill blog:





Who owns your tomato?
Another big horticultural seed company bought by Monsanto
Posted by Matthew Dillon at 9:45 AM on 04 Apr 2008



When Monsanto buys into a market, they buy in big. In 2005, Monsanto's seed/genetic trait holdings were primarily in corn, cotton, soybeans, and canola. That year, they purchased Seminis, the world's largest vegetable seed company (see And We Have the Seed) specializing in seed for vegetable field crops. Now their takeover of the vegetable seed sector continues, as they have announced the intent to purchase the Dutch breeding and seed company, De Ruiter Seeds.

This purchase diversifies Monsanto's seed holdings in vegetable field crops (Seminis) to "protected culture" fruits and vegetables (primarily tomatoes and cucurbits produced greenhouse, hothouse, etc). Analysts from Bank of America say that this gives Monsanto 25 percent of the world vegetable seed market, but I believe that this is a low estimate. (I contacted both Monsanto and the BofA analysts to ask for their data, but they did not respond to my emails.)

In 1998, according to their own figures, Seminis already controlled 26 percent of the overall global market in vegetable seeds, 39 percent of the U.S. market, and 24 percent of the European market. This is all vegetable seeds, but in their specialties -- tomatoes, peppers, cucurbits -- the percentage market share is much higher. A case filed against Seminis in 2000 by the U.S. government stated that they controlled 70 percent of the U.S. fresh tomato seed market (the case was regarding an anti-competition agreement that kept a Israeli company from competing in the U.S. tomato seed market. Syngenta initially lost in the federal district court case, but won in the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit). And in 2005, at the time of the Monsanto acquisition of Seminis, I spoke with a tomato breeder for Seminis who estimated that they had 75 percent control of the overall U.S. market.

With the De Ruiter protected-culture varieties, they may hit 85 percent control of the total market -- and that could increase, considering the trend in expansion of hothouse tomato production.

Hello, Department of Justice! Do we have an antitrust case now? ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/4/3/14329/85894

[LaurenG]

1. Is there a way to really find out who backs these people?

How in the hell can this happen right in front of us? No one should own the food supply, no one.

[The2ndWheel]

3. Because we're all chasing our dreams

You have to give something up to live in the reality we've built. Monsanto owning the DNA of plants is the price we pay.

[LaurenG]

4. Well from what I've been reading the US government owns the patent

with Monsanto/Delta & Pine Land. I may have misunderstood as the article is quiet long and involved but that is what it looks like. I hope the website I've linked is on the up and up. I don't know for sure though.

In a June 1998 interview, USDA spokesman, Willard Phelps, defined the US Government policy on Terminator seeds. He explained that USDA wanted the technology to be ‘widely licensed and made expeditiously available to many seed companies.’ He meant agribusiness GMO giants like Monsanto, DuPont or Dow. The USDA was open about their reasons: They wanted to get Terminator seeds into the developing world where the Rockefeller Foundation had made eventual proliferation of genetically engineered crops the heart of its GMO strategy from the beginnings of its rice genome project in 1984.

<snip>

Under WTO rules on free trade in agriculture, countries are forbidden to impose their own national health restrictions on GMO imports if it is deemed to be an ‘unfair trade barrier.’ It begins to become clear why it was the US Government and US agribusiness which during the late 1980’s pushed at the GATT Uruguay Round for creation of a World Trade Organization, with its supranational arbitrary powers over world agriculture trade. It all fits into a neat picture of patented seeds, forced on reluctant WTO member nations, under threat of WTO sanctions, and now of Terminator or suicide seeds.

<snip>

It’s the patent Delta & Pine Land, together with the US Government, holds--Patent No. 5,723,765, titled, Control of Plant Gene _Expression. The USDA through its Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) in Lubbock, Texas, as already noted, has worked with Delta & Pine Land since 1983 to perfect Terminator GMO technology. Patent No. 5,723,765 is the patent for Terminator technology.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=3082

[Shoelace]

2. grow heritage tomatoes

I think that they are still safe to grow. Gristmill does a great job of keeping up with these guys. Geez, who knew?

[ConcernedCanuk]

5. Disgusting that a person or company can "own" crop seed.

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.
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But wait

Decades down the road,

Maybe centuries

The "family farm" will come back.

It has to - these corporate giants are literally killing us.

That's my Canuk view