This is worth your time.
Especially pay attention from 11:00 all the way to 16:00.
Phylos CEO basically explains how they acquired the data they needed from their testing clients.
He goes on explaining how this aggregated data now creates a barrier to entry protecting them from competition.
Their board of advisors are specifically appointed to facilitate a future acquisition (upon federal legalization) by one of the Big 4 Ag companies, which are Syngenta, Dow Dupont, Bayer and BASF.
I afraid of them but not for any business that I conduct, I suppose, lol. I think they could do something to impact me in the future but only time will tell. I can say that I see it being nearly impossible for them to actually compete, outside of some overly commercial farm investors that will likely be met with rejection - by most in the market. Big players also already exist in the space doing well and with their own protected genetics [so you can’t just ‘Monsanto’ pollen bomb them and get the same results we have seen]. This plant is already way, way more free, and in the public domain than people seem to realize that are new to the industry and also more protected [at least in a space I can see Monsanto enter] than people think. They could enter the market and have an impact but I just think they are a much smaller threat, in this one space, than people might think. If it is Big Ag to fear - the bankers already made that happen. In some cases, the biggest companies around, they are actually good people [it seems lots of the shady lives more in the mid-sized players at this point, some of the biggest yes, but mostly the collective crazy of tons of small people that think they are big people causing havoc]. This plant also has a habit of punishing those that disrespect its people and its people seem more than willing, at all times, to self police.
Just to clear something up…
Brands such as Gavita, General Hydroponics, Botanicare, etc. are actually owned by a subsidiary of Scotts Miracle-Gro, not Bayer / Monsanto. While there has been a rumor about a large nutrient brand selling to Bayer, I can’t find any actual information to substantiate that rumor.
Basically, Bayer produces Round Up and Scotts Miracle-Gro is the exclusive distributor of Round Up, so they are interlinked. For these reasons among others (such as the field contamination and then suing of farmers etc.) I personally try not to support these companies when possible.
Scotts Miracle-Gro owns Hawthorne Gardening, and since their takeover of Sunlight Supply, not every company that is distributed through them is owned by them. I have talked to a lot of store owners who would like to not deal with them, but are forced to because customers insist on purchasing their products. Similarly, I’ve spoken to owners or higher ups at “competing” nutrient companies and many of them wish they had an alternative other than distributing their products through them, but it would have a severe impact on their market share if they pulled their products from them.
I think if we wanted to get away from supporting these companies, the biggest hurdle would be to address supporting Hawthorne as a distributor. Some of us would need to band together to create an opposing network of products.
That’s my opinion / two cents.
We already genetically modify our plants by breeding them for traits we desire. The fear of Monsanto is their patenting and enforcement of the patent. Similar to the current Phylos conversation.
Some higher up employee’s and consultants to Monsanto are already in the cannabis sector. I lost my extraction business to the daughter of one of those executives because they have just too much money to keep to themselves.
