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Concentration of market power
in the EU seed market
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Tomatoes
The vegetable seed sector represents 11% of the EU seed market. This sector is experiencing a high degree of
concentration, as 95% of the EU market is in the hands of only five companies.
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The tomato is the vegetable
species with the biggest economic value in the EU.
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Analysis of the common EU catalogue reveals that just 5
large companies control 45% of the tomato varieties (Monsanto, Syngenta, Limagrain, Bayer and RijkZwaan).
Monsanto controls 20% of the varieties listed in the catalogue. Unfortunately data on the market shares of these
companies in the tomato sector are not available.
Despite this, general estimations about the degree of concentration in the vegetable sector are possible, based
on applications for intellectual property rights:
As stated above, Monsanto, Syngenta and Bayer are actively applying for the protection of new varieties of to-
mato and vegetables, at a higher rate of requests compared to the average rate of requests. This indicates that
agro-chemical multinationals are targeting in the EU vegetable seed sector.
However, there are some European companies that have important assets in the EU vegetable seeds market,
such as Rijk Swan, Enza Zaden and Gautier. These companies have so far managed to remain independent
despite giants such as Syngenta and Monsanto, but if one of these were to become assimilated into the larger
corporations, then the degree of concentration would obviously be even higher.
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Commission staff working document: impact assessment accompanying the document 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, http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/health_consumer/pressroom/docs/proposal_aphp_ia_en.pdf76.
“In the European Union, the most important vegetables in terms of production are tomatoes (around 16.8 million tonnes), carrots (around 5.3 million tonnes) and onions (around 5.4 million tonnes)”, (extract from: Agriculture and fishery statistics: Main results — 2009-10, Eurostat, European Commission 2011, p. 60, http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-FK-11-001/EN/KS-FK-11-001-EN.PDF)77. Own extrapolation based on data from the EU common catalogues of varieties of ‘agricultural plant’ and ‘vegetable’ species
RijkZwaan - 3.8%
Bayer - 3.7%
Limagrain - 8.6%
Syngenta - 8.8%
Others - 38.5%
Monsanto - 20%
Control of the tomato varieties registrated in the
comm n catalogue
Source : own elaboration based on data from the EU common catalogues of varieties of agricultural plant and vegetable species.
Figure 9:
Percentage of the tomato varieties
in the EU common catalogue main-
tained by the top 5 companies in
the tomato sector, November 2013
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