SEEDS STUDY

22 / 40

22
The Polish case - a very small percentage are breeders
European Commission data from 2013 shows that the majority of EU seed companies, around 4800 (68%), are
located in Poland (around 2000), Romania and Hungary. All these companies taken together represented only 8%
of the value of the EU-27 seed market, with a large percentage of them being micro-enterprises50.
Consulting the Polish catalogue for agricultural plant species51 reveals that from a total number of 124
companies involved in maintaining seed varieties52, only 18% (23 companies) are Polish. The Polish vegetable
species catalogue also shows only 35 Polish registered maintainers. This means that out of the 2000 Polish
seed enterprises, at most 58 less than 3% are involved in breeding (this could be an overestimation since
some companies might be involved in maintaining both agricultural and vegetable varieties).53 In addition, the
European Commission recognised in the impact assessment of the legislative proposal on its seed marketing law
that “companies in the new Member States such as Poland, Hungary and Romania are not research intensive
and a large proportion are likely seed multipliers or seed traders”.54 This shows that a large percentage of
these companies are not actually involved in plant breeding as such.
Further analysis of the data on the 7000 EU seed enterprises shows that only a small number of them are actually
involved in breeding, where most of the added value of the seed sector is to be found. This means that only a small
number of companies are creating new varieties. Therefore the figure of 7000 companies cannot be used as an
indicator of the number of breeders contributing to biodiversity. In addition, even when (a small number of) breeders
are producing new varieties, this does not necessarily mean more biodiversity in agriculture, as is sometimes
claimed, because those varieties may not appear in the fields despite being listed in the EU Common Catalogue.
In France, the world’s leading seed exporter and Europe’s biggest seed market, there are only 72 enterprises working
on new varieties of all commercial species. Additionally, between 2006 and 2012, the number of seed companies in
the whole seed sector in France had decreased by 3.6%.55 It is not possible to find out which of these enterprises are
independent. Among the 72 enterprises working on new varieties, Clause, Eurodur, Limagrain Europe and Vilmorin
SA are owned by the same corporation. Some of the enterprises are public bodies: INRA and CIRAD.
The concentration in the seed breeding sector can be tracked through the requests of companies for plant breeder
rights for commercially important species. For instance, between 2000-2011 just 5 companies applied for 83% of
the plant breeder rights (PBR)56 for tomato varieties (the most profitable vegetable species) in the Netherlands57 .
At EU level this concentration effect was even more pronounced, with the top 5 seed companies applying for 91%
of intellectual property right (IPR) protection. In 2011, Monsanto and Syngenta were responsible for 57% of PBR
applications for tomato, against only 12% in 2000.58
50.
51. For the species covered by EU seed marketing Directives, registration of varieties in the EU Common Catalogue is a precondition for marketing seed. The common
catalogue is divided in two sections: one for ‘agricultural plant species’ and one for ‘vegetable species’. For agricultural plant species, every new variety needs
to satisfy a variety performance requirement, the so-called value of cultivation and use (VCU), before being registered. For vegetable crops, the VCU tests are not
required and seed can be commercialised in the same way as standard seeds.
52. As defined by the OECD “the maintainer of a variety is a person or an organisation responsible for maintaining the variety and ensuring that it remains true to type
throughout its full life-span and in the case of hybrid varieties that the formula for hybridisation is followed. Maintenance may be shared”, which means the two
different actors, for instance a public body with a private company, can be involved in maintaining the same variety.
53. A similar situation exists in Romania, where 81 maintainers are listed in the national list of agricultural plant species. In that case local maintainers represent
35% of the total seed enterprises in the country. (Staff working document of the impact assessment accompanying the proposal for a regulation of the European
Parliament and of the Council on the production and making available on the market of plant reproductive material, European Commission, May 2013, Brussels,
)