About us

“Svalöf” has a long and successful history in plant breeding ever since the rediscovery of Mendel´s laws in the year 1900. Swedish Plant Breeders like Hjalmar Nilsson and Herman Nilsson-Ehle are well known for their successful breeding work in the Swedish Seed Association based in Svalöv, a small town in southern Sweden.

From the outset, they combined theory and practice, maintaining close links with farmers, which has been a key to Svalöf´s success. The Swedish seed system was particularly effective in integrating private initiative and government support in a productive way.

However, with the trend towards privatization, in 1980, the government tansferred its interest in Svalöf fully to the private sector and the farmers’ cooperatives (the Swedish Farmers’ Supply and Crop Association). As a result, plant breeding activities were combined with commercial seed production, processing and marketing were incorporated into a new shareholding company known as Svalöf AB. With continuing pressures in the enlarged European market, and globally, Svalöf AB amalgamated with is main competitor W Weibull AB under the new company name Svalöf Weibull AB. Thus in 1993 this became the main force in Swedish plant breeding and seed production. It is clear that this history of seed company development is relevant to many other countries in which government support for public research continues to decline, while the demands for food production increase.