Seed company Seminis has been snapped up for $1bn by agrichemical giant and leading GM advocate Monsanto.
The company said it is buying Seminis to broaden its portfolio of seeds and tap into the trends for healthier diets.
Seminis supplies more than 3,500 varieties of seeds to fruit and vegetable producers, dealers, distributors and wholesalers in more than 150 countries.
Hugh Grant, chairman, president and chief executive of Monsanto, said: “The addition of Seminis will be an excellent fit for our company as global production of vegetables and fruits, and the trend toward healthier diets, has been growing steadily over the past several years.”
Seminis will act as a wholly owned Monsanto subsidiary, headed by its existing president and chief operating officer, and it will continue its focus on developing products using advanced breeding techniques, with biotech applications an option well down the road.
Alfonso Romo, chairman and ceo of Seminis, said: “We are bringing a complementary technology base and specialised expertise that can not only support economic growth for farmers, but contribute to the health and nutrition of consumers on a global scale.”
At Seminis Vegetable Seeds in the UK, special projects manager Steve Parrott was expecting business as usual in the short term. “We are not anticipating any changes for the foreseeable future,” he told freshinfo.
A major agrichemical firm buying into the seed sector is nothing new and in the 1990s BP and ICI both dipped a toe in the water before retracting. “As seed-breeding is such a long-term endeavour, it is likely to be some time before the UK vegetable seed sector would feel any impact,” one seed-industry analyst said. “Unless Monsanto changes the way Seminis operates its sales, there is unlikely to be any immediate change. The vegetable seed industry is fairly specialist, so I don’t see the buyout affecting jobs at Seminis either.”
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