A Family Story That Started in 1947
Latham Quality traces its roots to 1947, when Willard Latham and his wife Evelyn started a small seed business in Alexander, Iowa. Willard was a farmer and a tinkerer — he retrofitted a piece of equipment that helped clean and preserve oats against disease, and word spread quickly among neighboring farmers. Evelyn ran the office from the family kitchen, raising five boys while she handled the books and the phone calls. What began as oat cleaning soon grew into seed oat production, and by the 1950s and 60s, the family had transitioned into soybean seed.
Willard’s sons Bill, Don, and Tom joined the business after college in the late 1960s and 70s, expanding production and building a dealer network. The third generation followed: in 2004, Willard’s grandsons John and Chris Latham — along with John’s wife Shannon — launched Latham Hybrids LLC, eventually merging operations into what is today Latham Hi-Tech Seeds.
Same Family. Same Standard. Still Family Run.
Today, John and Chris Latham lead Latham Quality, the family’s soybean seed production and conditioning business, as well as Latham Hi-Tech Seeds, the family’s retail seed brand offering corn, soybeans, and alfalfa. Latham Quality continues the work that started in Willard’s grainery: growing, conditioning, and packaging high-quality soybean seed to standards that growers and seed companies have trusted for generations.
In 2024, Latham Hi-Tech Seeds partnered with MS Technologies, with John and Chris continuing to lead daily operations. Latham Quality remains independently family-owned and operated, producing soybean seed for Latham Hi-Tech Seeds as well as performing custom production and conditioning work for other seed companies and growers.
What Hasn’t Changed
After more than seventy-five years, the foundation Willard laid in 1947 is still the foundation we work from today: produce the highest quality seed you can, treat every customer’s business like your own, and stand behind every bag that carries the family name.
