SEEDS STUDY

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Concentration of market power
in the EU seed market
INTRODUCTION
This study sheds light upon the increasing concentration of the EU seed market. It uses industry data
to show that the mantra of the seed lobby and giant seed companies, that the EU market is healthy and
diversified and is made up of some 7000 mainly small and medium enterprises (SMEs), is misleading.
Notably, in the absence of freely available data and independently verifiable statistics, the European
Commission is forced to rely upon industry statistics and further promotes the industry myth. This
allows the corporations to dominate the narrative and manipulate the arguments to the general public
on what is in their best interest.
The European Commission has been accused of drafting the seed marketing law1 to benefit the big
seed lobby, who in turn claim they are not a big lobby but a multitude of some 7000 medium and
small players. The DG SANCO of the European Commission routinely contradicts itself when its
representatives quote industry figures stating that there is no concentration in the EU market(s), while
in their own impact assessment for the seed marketing regulation they state that 95% of the vegetable
seed sector is controlled by a mere 5 companies.
In the case of maize, just 5 seed companies control around 75% of the EU market share. In the case
of sugar beet, just 4 companies control around 86% of the market and 8 companies together control
99% of EU market.2 In the vegetable sector for example, the agro-chemical/seed company Monsanto
already controlled around 24% of the EU market as far back as 2005.
Why is it important not to have a concentrated market dominated by a few major players? Firstly,
because a concentrated sector is not a healthy sector, in terms of competition and openness of the
market. Secondly, because of the effects on the diversity of players in the seed sector and of the
biological, especially genetic, diversity of our crops:
Globally, we have been seeing a steady decrease in agricultural and horticultural genetic diversity,
both in terms of i) genetic variation within strains and also ii) the absolute numbers available for
farmers and gardeners: Indeed, the UN’s food and agricultural organisation, the FAO, estimates that
the diversity of cultivated crops declined by 75% during the 20th century and that a third of today’s
diversity could disappear by 2050. According to the FAO3, more than 7000 species have been used in
the history of humanity to feed us and meet basic human needs. At present, only 30 crops constitute
90% of the calories in the human diet, and only three species (rice, wheat, maize) account for more
than half of the human calorie supply. The wealth of species that have contributed to humanity’s
balanced nutrition has therefore been severely eroded.
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1. Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and the Council on the production and making available on the market of plant reproductive material
(plant reproductive material law), COM(2013) 262 final, 2013/0137 (COD),
2. KWS data, 2013:
3. First Report of the State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, FAO, 1997,