Nothing but seeds for local entrepreneurs

Seeds are planted, watered, grown, and harvested. And in the case of Larry and Linda Lamb, they’re also cleaned.
Lamb has retained distribution rights on many varieties of seed in Northwestern Ontario. His business began as an alternative to shipping seeds to Manitoba for treatment, and he’s since become one of the primary seed distributors in Northwestern Ontario.
“We were finding that seed production was bigger here in terms of feed,” said Lamb. “If you brought your seed to Manitoba, we sort of got the feeling you were getting scalped.”
Between 400-500 tons of seed go through the cleaning process at Lamb’s Purity Seeds plant just south of Emo.
Tons of those seeds sit bagged and stacked, ready to be sent to customers across Northwestern Ontario. And lately, Lamb has found he’s running out of room.
Within the next year, he plans to double his machinery and his storage area to accommodate a growing number of customers as well as a growing list of products. Most of his seeds are sold in the area but Lamb is starting to take advantage of the Minnesota and Manitoba markets.
“We have varieties of seed that they can’t get in Manitoba or Minnesota,” he noted. “Some seeds are registered in Western Canada, others in Eastern Canada.
“We have exclusive rights for marketing in Northwestern Ontario but that doesn’t mean we can’t sell in Minnesota or Manitoba,” he explained.
Much of the seed that comes through Purity Seeds is grown on the Lambs’ property but a number of contractors also grow seeds for them.
“We have maybe roughly 700 acres this year,” said Lamb.
The seeds are dumped into a large set-up that includes three layers of mesh screens on a vibrating platform and large, pocketed cylinders. The seeds fall through the first level of screen and anything larger stays above.
Anything smaller than the seeds falls through holes on the second screen to the third one so only the right-sized seed remains on the centre rack.
The seeds then are shaken into the cylinders which are filled with small pockets. Only seeds of the right length fall into the pockets and continue through, while any deformed seeds or debris that made it through the first steps of the process are taken out.
Sitting in the Purity Seeds front office are bags of cleaned seeds without a speck of any other plant or dirt in sight.
“If you plant the weed seed and then fertilize it, it competes with your crop and lowers the value of your crop,” Lamb explained.
A teacher for 12 years at Fort Frances High School, Lamb always wanted to be outdoors. And with a degree in agriculture, he always had one eye on the agricultural community and finally decided to “make the plunge.”
Now, 10 years later, his business is thriving as part of the district’s agricultural community. And while this year will be a year of expansion for Purity Seeds, it’s also one of concern as the ups and downs in the ag business seem to be hitting extremes this spring.
“It’s a really strange year this year. You get the sense people don’t know what they want to do,” Lamb remarked. “I think people are feeling very cautious.”
Meanwhile, a number of other products have found their way onto Lamb’s to-do list. He is now the distributor for Cover-All, which offers the latest in tarp buildings and protective shields as well as for Federated Co-op Ltd., which has a catalogue of almost 22,000 items for farm work.
The latest project for Purity Seeds will make the Lambs the first North Americans to grow a registered crop of a new variety of self-pollinating hemp called Anka–a product the company may be able to put on the market as a certified seed in 2001.
But Lamb’s priority remains Purity Seeds. With millions and millions of seeds, from the trefoil seeds the size of a grain of sand to oats and barley, Lamb continues to strive to sell the best-growing varieties.
“We test the seeds for germination, that way you know the seed is going to grow,” he said.
And every year a new breed of seed is in the works, including two the Lambs hope to sell as a certified seed next year.
“The latest thing is in oats, Irish oats and Triple Crown oats, as well as Brucefield barley. They have higher yield,” he noted.