In days gone by, the seeds that grow our food were in the hands of farmers and public-sector plant breeders. Today, however, an increasing amount of seeds-the first link in our food chain-are controlled by a handful of multinational corporations.

The report "Who Owns Nature?" (available at www.etcgroup.org) was recently released by the ETC Group, a non-profit group taking action on erosion, technology and concentration. The report focuses on corporate concentration in commercial food, farming and health, and the strategic push to commodify the planet's remaining natural resources.

According to the report, Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta together account for 47 percent of the worldwide proprietary seed market.

Thankfully, there are a number of farmers still saving their own seed and many backyard vegetable gardeners and communities are also taking steps to secure seeds and a future for food outside of corporate control.

Supporting organic farmers and saving organic seeds becomes increasingly important as corporations introduce more genetically engineered seeds. Monsanto's biotech seeds and traits (including those licensed to other companies) is estimated to account for 87 percent of the total world area devoted to genetically engineered seeds in 2007.

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