Northland Seed & Grain Corporation, based in St. Paul, MN, recently announced that it is developing, producing, and supplying certified organic seed for and to its sister corporation, Northland Organic Foods. Northland Organic Foods will market the certified organic seed in the European Union, Asia, and the United States.

Northland has been developing high protein, specialty variety soybean seeds through traditional cross-breeding for many years. Traditional cross-breeding is the process whereby different germ plasm varieties of the same plant species are crossed, via pollen transfer during the flowering stage, to form a new progeny or plant variety which possesses the most desirable characteristics from the original varieties.

In 1999, Northland initiated an organic seed-breeding program to fulfill the international need for certified organic seed. Northland has variety expansion projects led by expert development teams at the University of Minnesota, the University of Arkansas, and in Costa Rica and Chile and currently has test plots in the United States, the European Union, and South America. The extended growing season in South America allows Northland to develop seeds year-round.

"The current attention and controversy surrounding biotechnology in seed development has detracted from the fact that a good traditional seed breeding program can accomplish much of what biotech companies promise, without the potential health and environmental risks," says Peter Shortridge, Northland's president. "The success of our seed development program is largely due to fact that we solicit input from both our producers and our customers to produce organic seeds which have strong agronomic characteristics as well as premium food-use characteristics."

Northland's program begins by selecting premium parent seeds with optimum characteristics to be used in traditional cross-breeding for the development of new patent soybean seed varieties. Northland only develops new seed varieties from existing plant varieties, since achieving and maintaining plant varietal purity is essential. Northland Seed & Grain never uses genetic modification in its seed development.

Parental characteristics such as protein, size, color, yield, flavor, sugar, and texture, among others, are selected and developed. Just one success story of the Northland seed breeding program has been the development of "Toyopro," a protein rich, late group O food soybean with exceptional agronomic characteristics. Northland will also be providing certified organic corn seed for markets in the United States and the European Union.