History
The seed industry has obviously gone
through many cycles of change. To me, the modern seed industry
began in the USA with publicly funded plant breeding at Land
Grant Universities. What followed was a privatization of
breeding and product development resulting in the thirty five
golden growth years of the seed industry until the mid 1980’s.
The industry then launched its quest to use biotechnology to
create new seed products. That quest started with plant
transformation with a foreign gene in the early 1980’s. At the
time many in the industry believed we would have Bt corn by
1985. The real introduction of Bt corn wasn’t until ten years
later. Biotechnology has been a blessing and a curse.
Biotechnology
Biotechnology has proven to be a very
difficult and costly science. The large biotech gene providers
spend between $300 and $400 million per year developing the
technology. Many of these companies have grown through
acquisition in order to become large enough to afford to fund
the large science research programs that are required. Some
large biotech companies also believe that controling seed
distribution and germplasm is paramount to a successful
biotech strategy. After all, the seed carries the single gene
of interest as well as the other 30,000 genes needed to grow a
plant. As a result of these two driving forces, the seed
industry has consolidated.
