Monsanto Takeover Targets Fruits & Vegetables
Fact: 40% of seed varieties sold in the United States are owned by Monsanto.
Noted for its aggressive advocacy of genetically modified crops and its dominance in biotechnology, Monsanto will now have a major presence in the vegetable seed business for the first time.
We aren't talking genetically modified seeds here were are talking about who is supplying the seeds. Even if you purchase non gmo seeds from a seed company who touts a 'Safe Seed Pledge' that variety may still be OWNED by Monsanto. Sorry to break the bad news to you, but that's the facts folks. We, yes even PTF, is supporting the big M by purchasing seeds from our favorite seed companies and you probably are too.
Out of the 2,500 varieties that Monsanto has acquired from the Seminis takeover, here are a few of the published veg varieties that we know that Monsanto owns:
Beans: EZ Gold, Eureka, Goldrush, Kentucky King, Lynx, Bush Blue Lake 94
Carrot: Nutri-Red, Sweet Sunshine, Karina, Chantenay #1, Chantilly, Lariat
Cucumber: Dasher II, Daytona, Turbo, Speedway, Sweet Slice, Yellow Submarine, Sweeter Yet
Lettuce: Esmeralda, Lolla Rossa (and derivatives), Red Sails, Red Tide, Blackjack, Summer time, Monet, Baby Star, Red Butterworth
Melons: Alaska, Bush Whopper, Casablanca, Dixie Jumbo, Early Crisp
Onion: Arsenal, Hamlet, Red Zeppelin, Mars, Superstar, Candy
Peppers: Valencia, Camelot, King Arthur, Red Knight, Aristotle, Northstar, Biscane, Caribbean Red, Serrano del Sol, Early Sunsation, Fat and Sassy
Spinach: Melody, Unipack 151Spinach, Bolero, Cypress
Squash: Autumn Delight, Bush Delicata (producer-vendor), Really Big Butternut, Early Butternut, Buckskin Pumpkin (AAS), Seneca Autumn, Table ace
Tomato: Big Beef, Beefmaster, First Lady I and II, Early Girl, Pink Girl, Golden Girl, Sunguard, Sun Chief Sweet, Baby Girl, Sweet Million
Watermelon: Royal Flush, Royal Star (pet), Stargazer, Starbright, Stars and Stripes, Yellow doll, Tiger
Zucchini/Summer Squash: Blackjack, Daisy, Fancycrook, Sunny Delight, Lolita, Sungreen
They aren't not done yet! Recently Monsanto purchased one of the largest Internationa Eurpoean based Seed Company.
Monsanto is now the largest supplier of vegetables seeds.
So what to do? Start saving fazing out listed Monsanto owned varieties, reach where your seeds come from and or save your own.
Taking Back Our Food Supply
Before agriculture became an industry, every gardener, farmer was responsible for the availability of seed for next years crop. With this recent merger and marketing tactics that has allow a certain "M"-onopoly to take over over the majority of the seed population. Seed-saving is one among many tactics of reclaiming our power (and freedom) to grow our own food, and an indispensable step towards fully sustainable and secure future.
The shift from public to private seed systems
Monsanto Purchases World’s Largest Vegetable Seed Company
The seeds of vegetable diversity
How to Save (y)Our Seeds
S.O.S Campaign & use our sister site Freedom Gardens to connect, meetup and swap seeds with local homegrown revolutionaries
22 Comments: "S.O.S" »
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I am EXTREMELY proud you are outting Monsanto! They are crooks! There are plenty of good videos out on the internet about them (search for them on google video)...
-The Future of Food
-The World According to Monsanto
and a new one I havent seen yet called...
-Monsanto: Patent For A Pig
There is also another company similar to Monsanto called "Syngenta"... keep an I out for them too!
The real answer is for us all to return to the 10,000 year-old ritual that made civilization possible. Everyone needs to grow and save some of their own seeds from the plants doing best in their own environments. Bring the seeds you save to an annual pot luck seed saving dinner organized in your area every fall. Trade for the other seeds you need. This is a simple system that will save us. Don't have a dinner to go to yet? Organize one. Use Meetup.com. You can find detailed seed saving information on the website of this 20 year-old non-profit dedicated to seed saving:
http://www.seedsave.org/issi/issi_904.html
Will spread the 'M' word news this side of the pond!These guys are without decency and morally without a 'conscience'.
Thanx for the wonderful articles!
blessings,
gerry m x
UK
I still can't believe that a company is allowed to own a seed variety. It boggles the mind.
Monsanto continues to metastisize like a cancer - slowly, insideously, and with bad intent.
It makes me shudder. Thanks for keeping a watchful eye on this evil and for keeping us informed.
So, will all of their varieties, regardless of source, require royalty payments, like they've done with gm grains? Sounds like vintage seeds and saving our own is moving up in priority!
Thanks for the post.
We already save almost all our own seed. We enjoy having control of the variety and trying to improve it over the generations.
I've been saving seeds this season. I hope they sprout next spring! I've purchased from Seeds of Change before, but you told me they were bought out by Mars(candybars!) I will be joining Seed Savers Exchange next.
I wonder what a candybar company wants with seeds anyhow...?
Apparently if you save seed from a particular variety that Monsanto has patented you may be sued for copyright infringment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02.....ref=slogin
Because they can now patent life itself you now have to hide one of the most ancient human rituals- saving seed.
It would have sounded sci-fi 10 years ago but it is the reality we have to deal with in 2008.
Here, after we buy seeds (organic or not) we save them always thereafter.
In Portugal we have a low-profile NGO that gathers traditional varieties from our country, from different places/climates, and distributes these for free to their affiliates!
But surely, these seed varieties whose names you've published are HYBRID seeds - the product of industrialised seed production which was and continues to be designed for the purpose of creating dependence on the provider of those seeds.
Anyone who is truly concerned about global food security and the independence of the citizen will only purchase OPEN-POLLINATED seed which cannot be patented etc.
I just read this in one of the articles:
" In 1997, Monsanto began to insert its Roundup resistant gene into one of Seminis’ lettuces"
I had no idea that there was also RoundUp ready lettuce!
Thank you for the information Julie, I had no idea and am looking into it right now!
Olá Paulo,
Can you send me a link or your NGO contact in Portugal?
De um conterrâneo!
GRRRR, I'm both mad and dissapointed. Territorial Seed Co, where I got all my seeds this year, signed the GMO free pledge but still sells Monsanto seeds. Heck, two of the names on the list are in my garden... Red Sails lettuce (I hope it's not the Round-up Ready one!) and Early Girl tomatoes. Heck, even our local newspaper recommended Early Girls as one of the few good producers for my climate.
Anyone know a good producing early variety tomato that works in the PNW that ISN'T owned by the big M? Shoot me an email or post on my blog. Thanks!
I will have to mention my displeasure with Territorial next time I talk to them... not that the clerks care. BTW, I discussed it in my blog a bit tonight I was so mad, and linked folks here. Hope you don't mind.
Thanks for posting this! Should serve as a great reference for me to cross check things when I order my seeds this year. Every year I seem to save more and more of the varieties I grow, but I always get "seed fever" and end up buying a bunch as well.
Chuffed.. My gardens asomwe.. and i havnt paid for a thing.. besides the occasional One Pound' shop purchase which i usually just take any way.. oh i forgot was holding that.. -Which is my first way of getting free seeds. Then there's collecting the seeds from them from the very source.. ie.the flowers, fruit, root and vege which they are!- where there's Markets and fruit shops theses always a bin out back (or front on garage night) shop keepers don't usually mind if you ask for their waste either.. i tell them its for my animals. In particular tomatoes, pumpkins and peppers (definitely!), apples, avacardo, carrots (tops), potatoes (all sorts are easy!),citrus, peas, beans.. in fact i cant think of anything that hasn't worked.. I even have a coconut palm (from a coconut !). Dry the seeds out by wrapping them in newspaper and putting somewhere warm. I put mine on top of the water-boiler. It takes from about a week for say chillies pepper or mandarin seeds to a couple of months, for say date or avacardo. -city style wild-crafting! Then of course germinate them. Quality compost is pretty essential here, the difference compared to using low quality dirt makes a couple of quid worth it. However i find there's often broken packages of kids craft type grow kits in the shops from which you take the compost tabs that expand in water. when they're little take them outside for short periods, get them used to the weather and temperature. Morning sun though the window, then outside till the evening then warm at night under the boiler is what i do. Then i transplant them straight into the ground..thirdly.. for The Window box! for herbs and lettuce, its an amazing place. More often now fresh lettuce and herbs is sold in pots -with roots!- from the supermarket. ( i get mine from the compost bin after my flatmates have used the other parts) leeks, spring-oinion, chives, yams, spinach.. any vege sold with roots basically- sometimes even fancy cabbage too.. obviously..plant these! but usually in well drained soil..I have a baby cherry tree and apple. Both these grew from seeds i collect from a nearby attolment. Which has turned out to be my fourth great source of free seeds! The old people there are great, I visit regulary, loads of advice and happy to share their seeds, bulbs, cutting..Its been a real joy,m and i think they like my keen interst.My goal was mostly for a totally recycled garden ie fences, beds, furniture.. its a bit of an addiction. But really if you compare a pound a pound of beams or tommy, or spud, ie. one family meal to a31.30 a packet of twenty, fifty or a hundred! seeds.- In my success- essentially each bean seed has given well over nine times one supermarket purchase. One potato has given me up to eight more potatoes, I now have fresh herbs and fancy lettuce all the time! and will NEVER have to buy tommy again! Its been an awesome project,I am thinking Id like to start a seed exchange sometime.
Baker's Creek still is monsanto free! I have almost exclusively bought from them for this next season... Thank you for making Monsanto more publically exposed than before.
I had heard about this. Fedco published information on their site and how they had dropped some of their best sellers because of the Evil M taking over those varieties.
This is truly scary!
A few more varieties to add to your list, from the Seminis Website
BROCCOLI
Captain
Castle Dome
Coronado Crown
General
Heritage
Ironman
Legacy
Liberty
Major
Pacman
Tlaloc
Tradition
CAULIFLOWER
Cheddar
Cielo Blanco
Cornell
Freedom
Freemont
Juneau
Minuteman
Whistler
CABBAGE
Ambrosia
Atlantis
Blue Dynasty
Constellation
Golden Dynasty
Huron
Missouri
Platinum Dynasty
Red Dynasty
Rocket
Rona
Ruby Dynasty
Spring Flavor
Tobia
TOMATO
Apt 410
Brilliant
Bizarr
Idool
Early Cascade
Ever
Ivone
Timotion
Applause
Biltmore
Beefmaster
Better Boy
Big Beef
Burpee's Big Boy
Cabernet
Caspian Pink
Celebrity
Classica
Cluster Grande
Corona
Crown Jewel
Cupid
Debut
Floralina
Florida 47 R
Florida 91
Glory
Golden Girl
Health Kick
Husky Cherry
Hypeel 108
Hypeel 303
Hypeel 849
Jetsetter
Keepsake
Lemon Boy
Margherita
Patio
Phoenix
Picus
PS 01522935
PS 01522942
PS 345
PS438
Pink Girl
Polish Linguisa
Quincy
Royesta
WATERMELON
Apollo
Companion
Cooperstown
Delta
Jade Star
Majestic
Olympia
Royal Majesty
Sentinal
Stargazer
Stars'n'Stripes
Wrigley
Yellow Doll
MELON
Ambrosia
Cabrillo
Destacado
Dorado
Durango
Earli-Dew
Eclipse
Magellan
Pulsar
Saturno
Sugar Nut
Vienna
Yellow Star
CUCUMBER
Babylon
Burpee Hybrid II
Conquistador
Cool Breeze Imp.
Dasher II
Daytona
Early Triumph
Expedition
Ex 4506143
Ex 04506117
Ex 14501043
Eureka
Fancy Pack
Fanfare HG
Fanfare
Holland
Homemade Pickles
Impreza
Indy
Intimidator
Journey
Kenia
Llanoverde
Loustik
Marketmore 76
Palomina
Patio Pickles SG
Poinsett 76
Rockingham
Speedway
Spoetnik
Talladega
Thunder
Thunderbird
Turbo
Vlaspik
TOMATO CONT.
Sausalito
Small Fry
Sunsugar
Super Marzano
Sweet Baby Girl
Sanibel
Solarset
Sunbeam
Sunbrite
Sunchief
Sunguard
Sunoma
Sunpride
Sunrise
Sunsation
Sunshine
Tygress
Tona Verde(Tomatillo)
Viva Italia
Window Box Roma
LEEK
Arkansas
POPCORN
Seneca Popcorn
SWEET CORN
Absolute
Devotion
Obsession
Passion
Seneca Arrowhead
Seneca Dancer
Seneca Spring
Seneca Sweet
Sensor
Synergy
Temptation
Vitality
LETTUCE
Brave Heart
Clemente
Conquistador
Del Oro
Del Rey
Desert Spring
Esmeralda
Grizzly
Honcho II
Ideal
Mohawk
Monet
Outback
Raider
Red Hot
Red Line
Sahara
Sharpshooter
Sniper
Sureshot
SPINACH
Avenger
Barbados
Correnta
Hellcat
Interceptor
Melody
MIG
Tigercat
Unipack 151
CARROT
Abeldo
Achieve
Caropak
Dominion
Enterprise
Envy
Minicor
Propeel
PS 07101405
PS 07101441
Prodigy
Pursuit
Recolete
Sweetness II
Tastypeel
EGGPLANT
Cloud 9
Epic
Galaxy
Hansel
Madonna
Night Shadow
Orion
Twinkle
WINTER SQUASH
Ambercup
Autumn Delight
Autumncup
Bush Delicata
Butternut Supreme
Burpee Early Acorn
Early Butternut
Pasta
Table Ace
Taybelle
Taybelle PM
PEPPERS-HOT
Aquiles
Ancho San Martin
Ball Park
Big Bomb
Cherry Bomb
Cardon
Caribbean Red
Chicken Itza
Chichimeca
Corcel
Coyame
Fresnillo
Grande
Garden Salsa
Habanero
Holy Mole
Hot Spot
Inferno
Ixtapa
Jalapa
Kung Pao
Kukulkan
Mariachi
Mucho Nacho
Mesilla
Mitla
Nainari
Nazas
PS 52095
Papaloapan
Rebelde
Rio de Oro
Sahuaro
Salvatierra
Spanish Spice
Super Chili
Tajin
Timebomb
Tuxtlas
Senorita
Serrano del Sol
Vencedor
Victorioso
ONION
Affirmed
Bunker
Caballero
Candy
Cannonball
Caveat
Century
Champlain
Charismatic
Citation
Damascus
Flare
Fortress
Gazelle
Gelma
Golden Spike
Granex 33
Grateful Red
Hamlet
Joliet
Mackenzie
Mercury
Monarchos
Nicolet
Orizaba
Red Zeppelin
Savannah Sweet
Sierra Blanca
Sterling
Tioga
Verrazano
Vision
BEAN
Alicante
Brio
Bronco
Cadillac
Carlo
Cyclone
Distinction
Ebro
Eureka
Ex 08120703
Excalibur
Fandego
Festina
Firstmate
Golden Child
Gold Dust
Goldmine
Goldrush
Grenoble
Hurricane
Hercules
Lynx
Magnum
Matador
Opus
Romano Gold
Sea Biscuit
Secretariat
Slenderpack
Spartacus
Stallion
Storm
Strike
Sunburst
Tapia
Teggia
Tema
Thoroughbred
Titan
Unidor
Ulysses
Valentino
Veronica
Volcano
PEPPERS-SWEET
Aladdin
Aristotle
Baron
Bounty
Camelot
Cherry Pick
Chocolate Beauty
Early Sunsation
Enterprise
Ethem
Excalibur
Key West
King Arthur
Luzon
Morraine
North Star
Orange Glory
Petite Sirah
Pimento elite
Plato
Pritavit
PS 9915776
PS 9927141
PS 9928302
Ramiro
Red Knight
Red Glory
Satsuma
Socrates
Striker
Sweet Spot
Wizard
PUMPKIN
Appalachian
Jamboree
Mini Treat
Orange Smoothie
Phantom
Prizewinner
Snackjack
Spirit
Spooktacular
Trickster
Wyatt's Wonder
SUMMER SQUASH
ambassador
Conqueror III
Daisey
Declaration II
Destiny III
Dixie
Gold Rush
Independence II
Judgment III
Justice III
Lemondrop
Liberator III
Papaya Pear
Portofino
Patriot II
Prelude II
Quirnal
Radiant
Senator
Seneca
Seneca Prolific
Sunny Delight
Sunray
Terminator
XPT 1832 III
Peter Pan
PEA
Ashton
Cabree
Crecendo
Durango
Estancia
Ex 08530726
Ex 08530731
Ice Pack
Ice Breaker
Mr Big
Nitro
Pendalton
Romance
Sherwood
Solution
Survivor
Utrillo