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What happens when one company owns a huge share of the seed market? We may soon find out.
The Monsanto Company recently announced it will purchase De Ruiter Seeds, a Netherlands-based company that supplies vegetable seeds to the greenhouse industry (the fastest growing sector in the vegetable industry, according to Monsanto).
De Ruiter currently has offices in both the U.S. (Lakewood, Colorado) and Canada (Ontario). And, as far as I can tell, it specializes in a handful of tomato, cucumber, pepper, melon, and eggplant varieties. After $860 million passes hands, all of this and more will be added to the Monsanto Empire, which already controls a significant portion of the seed market (about 90 percent of the transgenic seed market alone).
Like many industries, buyouts aren't uncommon in the agricultural sector. But Monsanto's aggressive acquisition of seeds of all kinds – the most fundamental component of our food – is troubling given the company's sordid history and desire to genetically engineer as much of our food and fiber as possible.
Between 1996 and 1998, Monsanto bought out or developed a relationship with the largest domestic and international seed companies in the world. Only a few major seed companies have survived these buyouts in the last decade, such as Pioneer Hi-Bred (a subsidiary of Dupont), Bayer CropScience, and Syngenta. Many of these companies have, however, entered into several agreements (and disagreements) with Monsanto regarding shared rights to patented genes.
Although Monsanto is known mostly for its grain seed technologies, the purchase of a seed vegetable company is not surprising. Monsanto's 2005 purchase of Seminis, the largest fruit and vegetable seed company, provided it instant control over more than 30 percent of the North American vegetable seed market; more than 20 percent of the world's tomato seed market; and more than 30 percent of the global hot pepper seed market.
After Seminis, Monsanto set its eyes on the fiber market through a $1.5 billion deal to purchase Delta and Pine Land, the nation's largest cotton seed company. Monsanto attempted to buy Delta and Pine Land in 1998 – during its purchasing spree – only to drop the deal under anti-trust scrutiny. Apparently, these regulatory hurdles disappeared in 2006, giving Monsanto control of half the U.S. cotton seed market. And did I mention that Delta and Pine Land came with about 30 of its own subsidiaries?
Needless to say, these buyouts increase Monsanto's revenue. Yet purchasing vegetable seed industries is a bit curious given past marketing failures of transgenic vegetables, including herbicide-tolerant tomatoes, strawberries, and lettuce – all of which were shelved before regulatory approval (after millions of research dollars were already invested) due to controversy around transgenic food.
Will Monsanto push transgenic vegetables again in the future? Or, are these buyouts a new frontier, beyond the plant type (vegetables), for the most dominant biotechnology firm to focus on non-genetic engineering breeding methods?
To be sure, a lot of fruit and vegetable research will be influenced under Monsanto's ownership. Yet the most salient issue – and this affects every concern voiced by the opposition to transgenic crops, even human health effects – is the amount of control exercised by one firm over our seed supply.
Forget about promoting competition, fair prices, and diversity in the marketplace. Concentration in the seed industry allows a handful of firms to decide the future of our food system – it's these companies' board of directors making decisions about farm and food products, not the farmers growing our food, and certainly not consumers who never consciously voted for a centralized food system to begin with.
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