Print This PageVegetable Seeds Business
It was exciting to see this business increase its gross profit margin to 53 percent for the year. The most exciting news in this area for 2008, however, was our acquisition of De Ruiter Seeds, one of the world’s leading protected-culture vegetable seed breeding companies. This acquisition complements our original, open-field vegetable business investment, Seminis, which we acquired in 2005. Last year, we pointed to the development of 10,000 molecular markers in our top 10 crops by the end of 2009 as an important growth driver for this business. Markers are “tags” used to identify genetic features of vegetables and other plants. We are now well on our way toward developing more than 16,000 markers across 12 crops by the end of 2009, with more than 7,700 markers for tomato, pepper and melon alone. We view the long-term outlook for our vegetable platform much the same way we see our soybean business today, with the potential for reaching $1 billion in revenue in 2012.
Peter van Meijel (above) of Kwekerij van Meijel, a farming operation located in Sevenum, the Netherlands, grows tomatoes developed by De Ruiter Seeds.
Vegetables — Monsanto’s acquisition of the De Ruiter Seeds business is expected to bolster the company’s vegetable-seed platform. The Dutch-based company serves the high-value, protected-culture market, the fastest-growing space within the vegetable seed industry today. The protected-culture market is growing as consumers in North America and Europe demand greater quantities and quality of fresh produce year-round. This pattern is expected to continue as consumers throughout Asia increase their demand for fresh vegetables and improve their diets. Based on this demand, it’s estimated that the protected-culture market will realize a compound annual sales growth rate of approximately 10 percent over the next five years.
