Welcome to Seed Sunday, a weekly roundup of five stories from the world of seeds, soil and the food they turn into. Each one links to the original reporting, and then I tell you what I make of it. I come at all of this as someone who made a film about seed savers and organic farmers, so I'm skeptical of the companies that would like to own the food chain from one end to the other. You'll see that in the commentary. The facts are the reporters'.
1. Corteva's seed business is now its own company
Yahoo Finance · GuruFocus · Oct. 1
On Thursday, Corteva finished spinning off its seed division into a separate public company called Vylor, which now trades on the New York Stock Exchange as VYLR and took Corteva's place in the S&P 500. Corteva keeps the crop protection side: herbicides, insecticides and fungicides. California had asked a federal court to hold up the split, and after a trip to the Fourth Circuit and back, the district court said no, so the deal closed on schedule.
My take: For years the big agrochemical firms told us seeds and sprays belonged under one roof. Now one of the largest has decided investors would rather have them apart. What doesn't change is who the seed company works for. A business that reports to Wall Street every three months gets paid for traits it can patent and license, and a farmer who saves and replants is, from that point of view, a lost sale. We spent a lot of time on that in Open Sesame, and Percy Schmeiser lived it. I'll be reading Vylor's patent filings more closely than its press releases. I'd also like to know more about why California wanted the split delayed, because the coverage I've seen doesn't explain it.
2. A Roundup trial tests what's left after the Supreme Court ruling
Reuters, via Insurance Journal · Oct. 1
A trial opened Sept. 29 in Missouri state court in St. Louis on behalf of three women who developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma after using Roundup. One of them, Cynthia Fernandez, died before it began. In June the Supreme Court barred lawsuits claiming the label should have carried a cancer warning, so this case rests on different ground: that the product itself was defectively designed and unsafe to sell. Bayer says those claims are foreclosed too and that decades of studies show glyphosate is safe. Reuters counts about 65,000 claims still pending, and Bayer's proposed $7.25 billion settlement is still in front of a judge.
My take: The June ruling came down to this: the EPA approved the label, so the company can't be blamed for what the label left out. That makes the regulator's silence the manufacturer's defense, which is an odd place for a public agency to end up. This trial asks the question that's left over. If you can't sue over the warning, can you still sue over the product? I don't know how a jury will answer, and I won't guess. But 65,000 people are waiting on it, and whatever happens in St. Louis will shape how much that $7.25 billion is really worth to them. None of it changes the simplest advice I know for anyone who'd rather not eat glyphosate, which is to buy organic when you can.
3. USDA puts $1 billion behind "regenerative" farming
USDA · Sept. 29 · Western Ag Network · Sept. 30
USDA is raising its Regenerative Pilot Program from $700 million to $1 billion for fiscal year 2027, with $650 million going through EQIP and $350 million through the Conservation Stewardship Program. The agency says it signed more than 5,100 contracts worth $851 million last year. Farmers apply through their local NRCS office and can bundle several practices into one whole-farm plan.
My take: I'm glad to see it. A billion dollars for soil health is a billion dollars that isn't subsidizing the usual way of doing things, and 5,100 contracts tells me farmers want this. My hesitation is the word itself. "Organic" has a legal definition and an inspector who shows up. "Regenerative" doesn't, at least not yet, so it can mean cover crops and compost on one farm and a slightly lighter spray schedule on the next. The release talks about cutting dependence on costly chemical inputs, which is the right goal. I'd like to see the program report how much those inputs really drop on enrolled farms. If the numbers are good, publish them and let everybody learn from it.
4. Britain clears a gene-edited banana that doesn't brown
Global Agriculture · Oct. 2
On Sept. 29 the UK's environment department, Defra, confirmed that a CRISPR-edited banana from Norwich-based Tropic Biosciences qualifies as "precision bred" under the country's Precision Breeding Act. The edit switches off the gene behind the enzyme that turns cut fruit brown, which buys an extra day or two at room temperature. It still needs a separate food safety sign-off from the Food Standards Agency, a step no precision-bred food has completed so far. Tropic is aiming at fruit salads, smoothie kits and other prepacked products.
My take: Ten years ago I wrote a post called What is CRISPR? USDA says regulation not needed. Britain has now arrived at roughly the same place by a different road. Browning is how a banana tells you how old it is, so I'm not convinced that hiding it for two more days is the kind of problem that needed a patent-ready solution. The pitch is less food waste, and maybe so, but the first customers are packaged fruit salad makers, which tells you who benefits most. The article doesn't say whether shoppers will see anything on the label. That matters more to me than the browning. People can decide for themselves about gene-edited fruit, but only if somebody tells them that's what they're buying.
5. A three-acre farm in Moab cuts its water nearly in half with old seeds and sunken beds
Moab Sun News · Oct. 1
Easy Bee Farm in Moab, Utah, has had its irrigation allocation cut by 30 percent last year and 50 percent this year. In February it dug a test plot of five 40-foot sunken beds, a method borrowed from Tohono O'odham and Zuni farming, and planted only regional varieties from its own saved seed, neighbors' donations, Native Seeds/SEARCH and Pueblo Seed & Food Co. A sunken bed used about 45 gallons a day in summer against 81 for a standard one. Peppers and tomatillos did well. Corn and squash didn't. A free desert seed-saving workshop is set for Monday, Oct. 5.
My take: This is my favorite story of the week, and nobody's stock moved because of it. A small farm lost half its water and went looking for answers in two places: seed that had already adapted to the desert and a growing method people in the Southwest worked out long ago. It didn't all work, and I like that the farm said so. That's what real trials look like. The crop manager, Rachel Gravens, wants to start a community seed bank for locally adapted varieties, and it put me in mind of the seed library in Mora, New Mexico that I wrote about years ago. Seeds like these don't come with a license agreement. They come from a neighbor, and next year you pass some along.
Also worth a look
- A petition asks EPA and FDA to review spraying weedkillers on oats, wheat and barley right before harvest (Center for Biological Diversity press release, Oct. 1)
- Atrazine turns up in about a quarter of U.S. river and stream miles (The New Lede, Sept. 24)
- A university library in Tennessee lends out heirloom seeds, five packets a week (MTSU Sidelines, Oct. 2)
- Gene editing comes for cacao, with black pod disease as the target (AgNavigator, a trade publication, Sept. 29)
That's the week as I saw it. If a story got past me, drop a link in the comments and tell me why it matters to you. And if you haven't seen the film that started all this, Open Sesame: The Story of Seeds is here.
Seed Sunday summarizes reporting from the linked sources. Commentary reflects the author's personal opinions.