Starting in 1999, he bought some ordinary soybeans from a small grain elevator where local farmers drop off their harvest. “They made sure they didn’t sell it as seed. Their ticket said, ‘Outbound grain,” says Bowman.
He knew that these beans probably had Monsanto’s Roundup Ready gene in them, because that’s mainly what farmers plant these days. But Bowman didn’t think Monsanto controlled these soybeans anymore, and in any case, he was getting a motley collection of different varieties, hardly a threat to Monsanto’s seed business.
Salem Farmers' Market