CONSERVATION

VEGETABLES, LEGUMES,
GRAINS & ROOT CROPS
As of 2005, when Monsanto took control of Seminis, its new subsidiary had
already cornered an estimated 40% percent of the U.S. vegetable seed market and
20% of the world market. In other words, one company (Seminis) alone provided
the patented or PVPA-certified seedstocks for 85% of the chile and bell peppers,
75% of the tomatoes, and 55% of the lettuce on U.S. supermarket shelves, in
addition to having a prominent position in the seed production for beans, broccoli,
cabbage, cucumbers, melons, peas, spinach and squash. At both the national and
international levels, large U.S.-based seed companies have consolidated power over
much of the genetic materials upon which our fresh vegetable supplies and our food
security depend.
Nevertheless, there are at least 275 other vegetable seed companies in the U.S.
and Canada, up from an all-time low of just 215 companies in 1987. From 1984, when
99 vegetable, grain, legume, tuber and herb varieties were listed in North American
seed catalogs, the diversity rose 31% to 6483 varieties in 1994, and increased another
31% to 8494 in 2004. Many on-line, niche market seed listings have cropped up since
2004, making it almost too difficult to track the growth of the seed outlets which are
dramatically diversifying the alternative food networks of North America.
But just how are the food networks from farm to restaurant or home kitchen actually
diversifying? With data made available from the last twenty-two years from Seed Savers
Exchange archives, we tracked fifteen of what were once the rarest annual heirloom
crop varieties that have boarded onto the Ark of Taste, from Amish Deer Tongue lettuce
to White Sonora wheat. In 1981, most of them were available from only one or two
seed catalogs, and only a handful of backyard seed savers grew them, let alone many
commercial farmers. Today, these fifteen heirloom varieties are offered by an average of
113 commercial growers who post their produce inventory on localharvest.org, and an
average of six catalogs and on-line “mail order” inventories offer their seeds today.
Some of the recoveries—as you can read in the sidebars—are nothing short of
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