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| Would you care to explain to me how you would cover the cost of research and development of new hybrids, cost of production, conditioning, treatment, electricity, personnel, equipment, testing, etc? I understand the idea but there is a lot of cost that goes into developing new hybrids. The $100-125 mark is the mark of off-patent genetics that are re-makes of hybrids sold 25 years ago. Those are available through other companies. There is merit to the off patents but that's not what we are doing. We are a small, independent company attempting to bring competitive, new germplasm into the marketplace that will compete with the Bigs. It's a lofty goal, but one that we feel is worth the effort given that there isn't much diversity left in the germplasm pools being sold to farmers. When 3 companies control 96-98% of the seed corn sold in the US, it's problematic. For reference, around 30 million bags of seed corn sold every year in the US, so, 3 companies control about 28 million of that. I understand that there is an illusion of competition because of the Independent seed companies selling against the Dekalb's, Pioneer's and NK's of this industry but those same Independent companies are using those parent companies' germplasm and are locked into very unfavorable contracts with them. We are simply offering a different option. Thanks for the comment. | |
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Avoiding Big Ag
