Acquisition Expected to Add Near-term Income Growth and Diversity to Monsanto’s Seed Portfolio

ST. LOUIS (Jan. 24, 2005) – Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON) announced today that it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Seminis, Inc., for $1.4 billion in cash and assumed debt… “

The news of Monsanto’s agreement to purchase Seminis has received little attention from the media other than the financial pages and a few seed industry and anti-globalization web sites. But then again, why should it? How many consumers – of food or seed – have even heard of Seminis? And yet, as Seminis spinmeister Gary Koppenjan said, “If you’ve had a salad, you’ve had a Seminis product.”

It is estimated that Seminis controls 40 percent of the U.S. vegetable seed market and 20 percent of the world market—supplying the genetics for 55 percent of the lettuce on U.S. supermarket shelves, 75 percent of the tomatoes, and 85 percent of the peppers, with strong holdings in beans, cucumbers, squash, melons, broccoli, cabbage, spinach and peas. The company’s biggest revenue source comes from tomato and peppers seeds, followed by cucumbers and beans.

http://www.seedalliance.org/Seed_News/SeminisMonsanto/

The losses, as reported by some sources, is between 1/3 and 1/2 of all winter Florida crops. Some of the crops made out better than expected and others, it becomes obvious, are a total loss. As a local food cooperative, Homegrown is committed to helping our producing members quickly and confidently restore their family farms to the vibrant operations they were before the freeze. Thanks for your continued patronage of the Co-op and our local farming community. See the summary below for a preview of what to expect for the next couple of weeks for local produce.

Florida Crop Damage Summary from New Year’s Record Freeze Event:

*Citrus, it appears, has survived much better than expected. The “thick skin” orange and grapefruit crops have some damage and reduced yields but it looks like most of the groves survived. The “thin skin” citrus made up of tangerines and tangelos were badly damaged with total crop failure in many areas.

*Strawberries sustained some immediate losses and a portion of the plants were frozen beyond recovery, but the harvest has already resumed with excellent, sweet berries. Our local strawberry grower, Jordan Farms, has recovered nicely and is harvesting some exceptional fruit at a lower price point.

*Beans were damaged or destroyed in the more northern growing areas , but our Homestead grower looks like he will likely recover shortly with minimal to moderate loss. Yields will be lower for a period of time and some gaps in supply are possible. We expect beans to arrive by the end of this week.

*Zucchini and Yellow Squash for the most part were a complete loss, but a couple small fields survived with low harvest volumes expected. This is likely to last for the next 5-6 weeks.

*Bell Pepper it appears is nearly a total loss.  There is extensive damage and many farms have lost the total crop. Expect the price for local Green Bells to remain high. These peppers will be in very short to no supply in the near future.

*Leafy Greens are in the best condition of the Florida crops. They tend to have better cold tolerance. Following a short period to clean up the farms of the damaged plants, the lettuces, kales, and greens have begun to harvest once again. The volume will be down due to some plant losses and some gaps in supply are likely, but the harvest has once again resumed, and Florida lettuce and greens are available. The product quality is simply outstanding.

*Eggplant is badly damaged with many areas experiencing total losses. We have seen small volumes from the warmer farms being harvested at this time.

*Corn from our east coast grower has already begun light harvesting with significantly reduced yields. The long term damage to the crop has yet to be determined. Expect gaps and short supplies.

*Tomatoes appear to be the crop with the most damage. Most, if not all of the local organic tomato crops were severely damaged if not destroyed. Several Florida tomato growers have also found areas on their farms that made it through the freeze and they are picking some great LOCAL fruit. This is true not only for the large slicing tomatoes, but also the romas, grapes and cherry tomatoes.

*Cabbage was damaged slightly and the harvest delayed, but volumes of green cabbage should return to moderate levels shortly. Red cabbage is not currently harvesting at this time.

Please remember, this is an early report, and conditions can change quickly in agriculture.

As the harvests slowly resume, our LOCAL GROWERS are looking for all of our support to keep the farms alive and growing.

As Homegrown Co-op Members, we know they can count on your support.

turnip soup

Roasted Turnip and Greens Soup

2 bunches turnips with greens

3 medium shallots/onions/leeks and cut into 1/2 inch pieces

2 tsp olive oil

3 cloves of garlic, minced

salt

6 cups stock

–

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Separate the tops from turnips. Toss cut turnips and shallots in olive oil and salt. Spread them on a baking dish and roast for an hour. Stir, don’t burn!

3. Chop green to bite-size. Cook in pan with olive oil and garlic on medium heat. When tender, add stock and simmer.

4. When roasting turnips are soft, place in the stock & greens. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 5 minutes. Add spice (rosemary, pepper) to taste.

Gov. Charlie Crist cited extensive losses for agriculture producers in all 67 Florida counties in seeking a disaster declaration for the entire state due to cold weather losses.

In a letter to Tom Vilsack, U.S. Department of Agriculture secretary, Crist said that 13 days with hours of below-freezing temperatures resulted in “a tremendous amount of damage” to all sectors of agriculture, including tropical fish and crops such as citrus, sweet corn, tomatoes, mangoes and strawberries.

Widespread cold-related damage has been reported in Polk County, the state’s top citrus producer, and in vegetable fields in Hillsborough and Manatee counties.

A disaster declaration for the state would give growers access to federal money to help recover from losses.

Damage assessments are under way, “but already I am receiving troubling reports of some areas being completely wiped out,” said Charles H. Bronson, Florida’s commissioner of agriculture, in a letter to Crist

CORNUCOPIA, Wis. – December 14 – An investigation by the USDA’s National Organic Program has determined that Target Corporation wrongly used the image of a certified organic product when promoting the sale of a conventional product to consumers. The investigation was triggered by a complaint filed by The Cornucopia Institute, a farm policy group and organic watchdog based in Wisconsin.

The violation at Target came after Dean Foods switched almost all their category-leading Silk soymilk from organic to conventional soybeans earlier this year. The specific problem involved Target using an image of a Silk organic product, in advertising flyers, when the retailer was really selling Silk’s reformulated “natural” version (not organic, but made with conventional soybeans). Target made a commitment to the USDA to review their procedures to “prevent future errors of this nature.” And now, over eight months after Dean Foods stealthily switched its core Silk product line to cheaper conventional soybeans, while, until recently, retaining the same packaging appearance. Now the giant dairy processor’s WhiteWave division has been found itself to also be misrepresenting the product as organic on one of their own websites. A new legal complaint has been filed in an attempt to protect consumers from what Cornucopia calls, “fraudulent misrepresentation.” “It should not take the judicious oversight of an industry watchdog to cause these giant corporations to simply comply with the law,” said Mark Kastel, Cornucopia’s Senior Farm Policy Analyst. “Target and Dean are trying to do organics on the cheap and have not invested in the kind of management expertise necessary to prevent problems of this nature from occurring,” added Kastel. “And after widespread media condemnation, it’s hard to believe that Dean Foods hasn’t even cleaned up its own websites.” Since the NOP investigation, and Target’s pledge to review their practices, unlike Dean Foods, Cornucopia has not observed additional problems with the retailer’s advertising. The meteoric rise in consumer interest in healthy, environmentally sound and humane farming practices has catapulted organics into a $24 billion industry. Along the way, major agribusinesses , like General Mills, Dean Foods and Kraft have gobbled up many pioneering companies that helped build the industry through a series of acquisitions. Today, most processed organic food is produced and controlled by the same type of companies that bring us International Delight imitation coffee creamer, Cheetos, Ding Dongs and Cap’n Crunch. No longer controlled by industry visionaries, corporate managers now seek to squeeze extra profits out by sometimes switching established organic brands to “natural” labeling, using cheaper conventionally grown and processed ingredients. That’s a far cry from when the organic food and farming movement first started enjoying widespread commercial success in the 1980s. In its inception, the industry was dominated by a number of family businesses, entrepreneurial enterprises and farmer-owned cooperatives, where building a profitable brand was most often married with the owner’s values. “Big is not necessarily bad in the organic industry,” said Mark Kastel, codirector of The Cornucopia Institute. “As an organic watchdog we are much more concerned with ‘corporate ethics’ than we are with ‘corporate scale.’” Dean Foods, the largest dairy processor in the United States, has apparently acquiesced and finally changed the packaging for their Silk brand of soymilk. Cornucopia had sparked widespread media scrutiny, and associated consumer backlash, against Dean for quietly shifting their core silk product line from organic to conventional soybeans-while keeping essentially the same packaging and UPC (scanner) barcodes. “This change [new packaging] should have happened right as they shifted to conventional soybeans, not after the fact,” said Kastel. “For the better part of this past year, consumers and retailers both have repeatedly reported that they were deceived and ended up unknowingly buying Silk products with conventional soybeans,” stated Kastel. With both their new and old packaging still in the marketplace, Cornucopia is concerned that consumers will be misled by advertising on websites representing the product as organic. Silk is manufactured and distributed by Dean Foods’ WhiteWave-MorningStar division headquartered in Longmont, Colorado. Like many other massive agribusiness corporations, the Dean name never appears on the packaging for its soy foods or its Horizon dairy label-just as consumers will never see the name General Mills on a package of Cascadian Farms frozen vegetables, Kraft on Back to Nature brand crackers or Kellogg’s on Kashi cereal. Dean/WhiteWave spokesperson Sara Loveday denied the corporation intentionally misled their customers, telling the East Bay Express in a November interview, “The company was not trying take advantage of consumer confusion over organic and ‘natural.’” “These corporate food giants know that many organic consumers are looking for an alternative to our current food production system,” said Will Fantle, who heads up Cornucopia’s research staff. “Upon acquiring a number of the leading organic pioneers, they have kept their subsidiary names upfront on packaging to create a façade “hiding” the true corporate ownership,” Fantle noted. Cornucopia maintains a chart, Who Owns Organics, created by Michigan State University professor Philip Howard, on its website that lifts the veil, enabling consumers to know who is producing their favorite organic brands (http://www.cornucopia.org/who-owns-organic/). Roy Beard, who has operated Roy’s Natural Market in Dallas for 41 years, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, in their November 8 coverage surrounding the Silk controversy, that he hadn’t realized there was a product change until contacted by a reporter. He said retaining the same bar code “was troubling.” Most retailers were never informed of the Silk switch to conventional soybeans. Dean/WhiteWave has also received heat in the organic food and agriculture community for choosing to convert some of their Horizon dairy products, the leading organic label in terms of sales volume, to cheaper “natural” (conventional) ingredients. “This really hit a nerve because one of these new Horizon products, Little Blends yogurt, is aimed specifically at toddlers, at an early stage of development, where the nutritional superiority of organic food, and its benefit of avoiding chemical residues in our food, is so critically important,” Kastel explained. “This starkly undermines the propaganda on the Horizon website proclaiming how dedicated they are to the organic movement-this is all about profit, not values!” The media blow up on the Silk switcheroo included a front-page story in the Chicago Tribune in July that outlined a consumer survey indicating the public was unclear about the difference between natural and organic labels and that some corporations, particularly Dean Foods, were taking advantage of the confusion in the marketplace. “Dean has only added to the marketplace confusion between ‘natural’ and ‘organic,’ as they definitely do not mean the same thing, and ‘natural’ requires no verification whatsoever,” Urvashi Rangan, a senior scientist at Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, also told Barry Shlachter of the Star-Telegram. The Cornucopia’s Kastel likes to identify corporate giant Heinz as a company doing organics right. “They helped fund California tomato growers who switched to organic production, and they brought in a highly reputable organic certifier, produced the product in their own plant, and finally put the Heinz name on the label,” Kastel stated. “I think their ethical approach to organic production is what consumers expect and is being rewarded in the marketplace by virtue of the success they’re having with their organic ketchup.” Cornucopia also cites Stonyfield yogurt, which was acquired by group Danone of France, as another example of a large public corporation continuing to uphold organic values. Stonyfield remains committed to buying all of their milk from family-scale organic farmers, unlike Dean Foods that is increasingly relying on factory farms for its Horizon milk supply. “The independently owned organizations, although they are fewer, have not totally gone away,” observed Fantle. Eden Foods, Nature’s Path and Organic Valley, among others, are still independently owned even though they each do as much as $500 million of business every year.” The new legal complaint filed against Dean Foods, for representing their conventional Silk soymilk as organic on one of their websites, was filed with the USDA’s National Organic Program. “We fully expect the NOP to send a cease and desist order to Dean Foods,” said Kastel. If Dean, a $12 billion a year public corporation, is found to have willfully violated the federal law governing organic commerce, it could be subject to fines and other penalties. ### Seeking economic justice for the family-scale farming community. Through research, advocacy, and economic development our goal is to empower farmers – partnered with consumers – in support of ecologically produced local, organic and authentic food.

Chicory: a delicious and spicy treat from the garden!

Chicory and White Bean Soup

Ingredients

* 2 medium onions, chopped
* 2 tablespoons olive oil
* 5 garlic cloves, smashed
* 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano, crumbled
* approximately 5 cups vegetable broth
* 1 pound chicory, torn into 2-inch pieces
* 16 oz. of white beans, rinsed and drained

Preparation

Cook onions in oil in a 4- to 5-quart heavy pot over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and additional herbs and cook, stirring, 2 minutes.

Stir in broth and bring to a boil. Stir in chicory and beans, then simmer, uncovered, until chicory is tender, about 15 minutes.

Transfer 2 cups of soup to a blender and purée until smooth (use caution when blending hot liquids), then stir into remaining soup to thicken. Season with salt and pepper.

–

Chicory and Eggplant Stir-Fry

Ingredients

* 1 medium onions, chopped
* 2 tablespoons olive oil
* 3 garlic cloves, smashed
* 1/2 teaspoon cardamom, or any herbs you like!
* 1 medium eggplant, sliced
* 1 tablespoon of miso paste
* 2 tablespoons of your favorite cooking vinegar (I like dark vinegars in this recipe)
* glass noodles, enough to share!

Preparation

Bowl a medium pot of water to cook the glass noodles. The noodles should cook in 4-5 minutes, then drain.

Cook onions in oil in a pan over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and additional herbs and cook, stirring, 2 minutes. Add the eggplant and stir to cover with the oil and spices.

Once eggplant is tender, stir in the miso and the vinegar and coat all. Stir in chicory, then simmer, uncovered, until chicory is tender, about 15 minutes.

Transfer the noodles into the pan and coat all. Season with salt and pepper, or as desired.

We want Publix to make good on its promise to be, in the words of its mission statement, “involved as responsible citizens in our communities.”

You can protest Publix’s refusal to support tomato growers who today are implementing more ethical farm labor practices by refusing to shop at Publix.

One recent story from the picket line captures the very different narrative behind this other face of Publix. About a week ago, CIW members and local allies organized a protest in Tampa. The picket attracted the attention of many in the Tampa rush hour traffic, including one kindergarten teacher who was so moved that she stopped to join in. As a teacher in nearby Ruskin, she has many students whose parents are farmworkers, and so she sees daily the struggles of farmworker parents to provide for their children. As she walked with the picketers, she talked with members of the CIW delegation and heard their stories.

After talking with the protesters, she approached a Publix representative who was on the scene. She voiced her concern for farmworkers as a Publix customer, but was met with a surprisingly harsh response. When the conversation was over and she told the Publix representative that she hoped she would meet him on better terms one day, his response was a curt “Don’t bother”. Taken aback with Publix’s hostility she quickly re-joined the protestors for the rest of the picket to spread the word to other customers in the evening traffic.

“Don’t bother”: Farmworkers who protest brutal conditions on the farms where Publix buys its tomatoes are met with silence from Publix executives and surveillance by Publix representatives. Publix customers who support the farmworkers are told not to bother to come back.

This is hardly the reaction one would expect from a company that puts so many millions of dollars into building its image as a caring member of the community, as a part of the family. But it is what it is: the harsh, defensive reaction of a multi-billion dollar corporation that responds to criticism as an attack, to a human rights crisis as a public relations crisis.

So this Thanksgiving, if you saw this commercial, try to reconcile the simple grace of the ad with the sheer inhumanity of Publix’s response, below, in today’s St. Augustine Record (“Farmworkers protest supermarket tomatoes”), because we can’t. When asked whether Publix continues to purchase from the farms where slave crews were recently found to have picked tomatoes:

“Publix spokesman Dwaine Stevens, who was on hand at the Cobblestone Plaza store to observe the protest, said the chain does purchase tomatoes from the two farms but pays a fair market price.

“Our position, and it remains firm, is it’s a labor issue,” Stevens said. “That’s not our role: to come between our suppliers and their workers.”

from: http://www.ciw-online.org/

Farm work is one of the most dangerous occupations and worst paying jobs in the country.

Farmworkers endure impoverished living conditions, intensive physical labor, chronic pesticide exposure, racial discrimination and exploitation, deplorable wages with little or no benefits, and long working days in hazardous working conditions.  They generally live in labor camps or substandard housing.  Despite these hardships, farmworker families somehow retain a spirit of community, faith, and hope – surviving on pride and determination.

Did You Know?

• Farmworkers suffer the highest rate of chemical-related illness of any occupational group

• Agriculture is consistently ranked among the five most hazardous occupations by the U.S. Department of Labor.

• In a single day’s labor during peak season, a typical farmworker handpicks, while leaning from a ladder, three and a half tons of oranges, or stoops to pick about 3,000 pounds of tomatoes

• In 2000, the median income for migrant and seasonal workers was $6,250, compared to $42,000 for U.S. workers overall

• Nearly three-quarters of U.S. farmworkers earn less than $10,000 per year and three out of five farmworker families have incomes below the poverty level

This year, farmworker families are suffering even greater hardships. Already living at the poverty level, many of them have been hard hit by the economic crisis – less work days in the fields and ferneries, reduced crop production, rising cost of food and housing – and many live in fear and intimidation because of racial profiling by law enforcement officials in their communities and by the reality of family members who have been deported, leaving single parents struggling alone.

At the Homegrown Co-op, we are grateful to know that our local farmers operate by good labor practices, but acknowledge that not all those who labor in our fields are so lucky. So this holiday season, we encourage you to think of those who work so hard to put food on your table, by helping them put good nutritious food on their family’s table this holiday.

Homegrown Co-op has teamed up with the Florida Farmworker Association as part of its Holiday Basket campaign. Community members may purchase a basket of locally grown produce from Homegrown Co-op, to be shared with families of farmworkers who are most in need of a nourishing meal this holiday season.

At Thanksgiving and Christmas, millions around the country sit down to dinner and give thanks for the food they are about to it. How many of us think about the hands that harvested that food, that made it possible for us to have an abundance of food to eat?

This year, support Florida Farmworkers with a gift of fresh food that is desparately needed. Visit the Homegrown Marketplace and click on BASKETS/GIFTS to reserve your produce basket as a gift to be delivered directly to a farmworker family in need. Thank you so much for your support.

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