Ordering will resume for Fedco Seeds when we release our new catalog, in late November.
Abstracts for Penn State Biodiversity Conference
Seed Companies in the Northeast
CR Lawn, November 1997
A brief overview of Fedco Seeds: who we are,
where we are, what we sell, how we operate.
A discussion of what makes Fedco unique among
seed companies:
Our cooperative background. Unlike most businesses, Fedco had
a guaranteed market through the food cooperative network before
we had developed much expertise in our product. How being a
cooperative
shapes our goals, attitudes, customer base and operations.
Our strong commitment to keeping our prices down. Why we do
it and how we do it.
Our evolution from a repacker to a researcher. How and why our
focus has broadened. What we intend to do in the years ahead to
encourage diversity and why.
Fedco’s place in a changing industry.
The coming biotechnology revolution. How has it changed the seed
trade and what further changes might we expect in the years
ahead.
A study of synthesis and antithesis. The synthesis of
consolidation:
The wholesale seed industry will be controlled by a few
multinational
giants. The antithesis of dispersion: a plethora of new seed
retailers
responds to the crisis. New synthesis? Parallel seed industries
with big guys and little guys co-existing? Opportunities on both
sides of the street or must Fedco choose one side or the other?
Or will the big guys swallow up the little guys?
If you don’t like the news make some
of your own. How we can work together to help each other out and
maximize crop diversity at the same time.
Plenary Session: Preserving Crop Biodiversity:
Whose Responsibility Is It?
Overview: what seed companies can and cannot
do. Looking at the realities.
Seed companies will always be with us. Most people cannot and/or
will not save seeds.
The different purposes of seed savers’ organizations and
seed companies. Where they overlap and where they don’t.
Varieties: owned by seed companies or in the public domain?
Addressing ethical questions: What seed companies can do
Using the catalog to do more than sell seeds.
The catalog as bully pulpit.
Alerting the public to the bioengineering revolution,
the resulting
consolidation of the food industry, and its possible
consequences.
Educating people about the benefits of local
agriculture. Educating
about the benefits of small regional seed companies and
regionally
adapted open-pollinated seed varieties.
Beyond the pretty face: Educating people to open their
minds
and mouths, to broaden their palates and embrace the
unfamiliar
even when it is not cosmetically perfect.
Researching as well as repacking
Using available resources to research what’s out
there. Joining and cooperating with seed savers’
organizations.
Developing a regional trials network.
Maintaining a varietal database.
Developing a seed growers network.
Developing a breeders network.
Making diversity accessible: keeping costs
reasonable
The emerging two food systems model and the dangers in
it.
The importance of keeping prices affordable.
The way to keep prices affordable: good business
practices.
The business must grow sustainably.
The business must develop internal efficiencies.
The business must foster good relations with
trialers and growers
by being clear about each party’s
responsibilities, honoring
contracts, recognizing and rewarding
cooperators, paying growers
fairly and on time.
Surviving the brave new world
Eliminating predatory practices.
Cooperating with seed savers—how both sides can
benefit.
Cooperating with other seed companies—ways to
create win-win
situations.
Building social/political alliances.
Influencing the public domain, some modest goals for political
work
Ensuring the right to diversity by insisting that the
right to
sell any varieties be not restricted any further.
Renewing public support for classical plant breeding at
our land
grant universities.
Exposing and questioning incestuous alliances between
government
and big agribusiness which are promoting products that
are not in
the public interest.
Working to regulate biotechnology, or at the very least,
to require
labeling of transgenic products so that the consuming
public may
choose knowingly.