I’ve recently published some posts pointing out a very high percentage of garden seeds come from the ‘big six’ seed companies, and how it’s very important to buy your seeds from a trustworthy source or you won’t know where they come from. Retailers that sell any seeds from large seed companies are almost always required to enter into very extensive marketing agreements. These usually make it impossible to label the origin or F1/OP status of any seeds they sell.
You can be sure any company that sells seeds from Monsanto will be bound by such an agreement, as it’s a well publicized tactic of Monsanto to hire private investigators to track down and sue, or even just threaten to sue, farmers and others who Monsanto suspects are using their seeds in violation of these agreements.
Remember too this is the company that prevented the retail labelling of dairy products containing their rGBH hormone, and their GMO products.
Do you think Monsanto wants their garden seeds labelled for what they are?!
So how do you know what seed companies can be trusted to sell you seeds that don’t come from the agricultural giants? In the case of Monsanto, most of their garden seeds in North America are sold through a subsidiary called Seminis. The Seminis web page has a useful list of seed companies that retail their seeds:
http://us.seminis.com/products/hg_dealer.asp (sorry no link, cut and paste into your browser)
As of the time of making this post the list included the following (with some very familiar names!):
Burpee, W Atlee
Warminster, PA 18974Dege Garden Center
St Paul, MN 55119E & R Seed Co.
Monroe, IN 46772Earl May Seed
Shenandoah, IA 51603Garden Trends
Rochester, NY 14624Gardens Alive
Lawrenceberg, IN 47025Germania Seed Co.
Chicago, IL 60631Johnnys Selected Seeds
Winslow, ME 04901J.W. Jung Seed Co.
Randolph, WI 53956Lindenberg Seeds
Brandon, ManitobaMountain Valley Seed
Salt Lake City, UT 84115Nichols Garden Nursery
Albany, OR 97321Park Seed
Greenwood, SC 29647Rocky Mountain Seed Co.
Denver, CO 80229T & T Seeds, Ltd.
Winnipeg, ManitobaTomato Growers Supply
Fort Myers, FL 33902Willhite Seed Co.
Poolville, TX 76487
When you buy garden seeds, and you want to save and regrow them, it’s very important to buy them from somewhere that doesn’t sell any F1s at all, because otherwise they won’t be honestly labelled for what they are!
Likewise, if you want to buy garden seeds that don’t come from the large seed companies like Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta, etc., it’s very important to buy your seeds from some place that doesn’t sell any seeds from these companies, because they won’t honestly label them for what they are!
