Who owe's your seed?

[momofdrew]

I wish I could have been able to inlarge that so I could read it...What about places like Seed Savers, Johnny's, High Mowings, Comstock & Ferre and Baker Creek Heirlooms... these for the most part are small family owned businesses...do we have to worry about them too...

 

[Ladyhawke1]

I wish I could have been able to inlarge that so I could read it...What about places like Seed Savers, Johnny's, High Mowings, Comstock & Ferre and Baker Creek Heirlooms... these for the most part are small family owned businesses...do we have to worry about them too...

I am not sure what you mean inlarge. ? You are aware are you not that there are enlarge capabilities on all computer screens. They are called such things as "zoom" etc. I hope you were not belittling the information.

 

[hoodat]

Not all companies are their own entity, many are controlled by a higher power to holds ownership in the company, complete control of the company, or may even hold the patients to what the company produces. I've seen LOTS of people saying things such as they don't want to buy GMO seed, or seed created or distributed by Monsanto. They are indeed a powerhouse and have quite a good hold on a good majority of the seed out there. I have this chart I'm going to share with you, so you can see if Monsanto is the parent company to the company you are buying from. It can be quite confusing because you will see if you buy from one company, they are controlled by yet another company... however, a portion of ownership can still going back to Monsanto. It's quite tricky!

For as huge as the are... DuPont and Syngenta are quite large entities themselves with a good amount of control.

https://www.msu.edu/~howardp/seedindustry.html

A good confusing example:

Jung seed!

Jung is owned by ASI but ASI is owned by Monsanto... you see the links!?

Problem is what comes down to partial ownership details. They could quite possibly hold a large amount of stock and profit from the company, but it does not say whether the company has a strong enough hold to control testing, sales or patients.

Monsanto has a nasty habit of trying to patent heirloom seeds. Both Mexico and India have gotten into battles with them trying to patent and gain control over seeds that have been passed down for hundreds of generations. The biggest battle was when they tried to patent the neem tree which grows wild in many parts of the near and far east.
http://www1.american.edu/ted/neemtree.htm

Oh god how I love people who do their homework.

If you want to read about one of the real heroes of this war on nature, there is Vandana Shiva. I have followed her efforts for over ten years. Her passion and energy is unbelievable. To hear her speak is inspirational.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandana_Shiva

She's a wondeful woman who has devoted her life to saving small family farms, especially in the undeveloped countries. There are many videos of her speaking on Youtube and they are well worth listening to. Here is a link to a 5 part series on her. You can see al 5 parts on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4DdzT90YWk

 

[The Mama Chicken]

I wish I could have been able to inlarge that so I could read it...What about places like Seed Savers, Johnny's, High Mowings, Comstock & Ferre and Baker Creek Heirlooms... these for the most part are small family owned businesses...do we have to worry about them too...

I am not sure what you mean inlarge. ? You are aware are you not that there are enlarge capabilities on all computer screens. They are called such things as "zoom" etc. I hope you were not belittling the information.

I tried to zoom in on it and the resolution wasn't high enough to read it. All I got was a pixilated blur. Maybe I'm not doing it right...
Anyway, there is a great article in Mother Earth News this month (with an easy to read chart) that I highly reccomend.

 

[897tgigvib]

I do know that Rob Johnston, the owner of Johnny's Selected Seeds, has a letter on their webpage addressing a concern from a customer that they might be owned by Monsanto. In short, strictly and absolutely not. The other concern addressed is that some of the seeds and products they sell are from Monsanto subsidiaries. He says there still are a few things that come from Monsanto subsidiaries, but that they are searching for ways to reduce that. Go to Johnny's webpage and read his words.

About an entirely different thing, I had been in email contact with one of Johnny's product technicians about trying to see if they could get ahold of a variety of corn. They could not. I still think Johnny's is a good company. In fact, they are working on making it entirely employee owned on a time schedule. That's a pretty cool way to do a company as you get old! Entrust it to your employees! I like that!