SEEDS STUDY

CONCENTRATION OF

MARKET POWER IN

THE EU SEED MARKET

This study shows that the EU market – in reality a number of smaller

Member State markets - is undergoing a concentration process, with

some member states becoming much more concentrated than others.

We use examples to illustrate this, by describing snapshots in two EU

member state markets in different stages along this process, France and

Poland, using the seed lobby’s own information. While this concentration

process is occurring, we increasingly see dominant seeddominant global

seed companies, in close collaboration with dominant global agro-

chemical companies, tailoring seeds to be dependent on those agro-

chemical inputs. It is without doubt a globalised market, where arms

of global corporations use their worldwide networks to obtain, breed,

multiply and distribute their seed: for example, source material may come

from Italy, breeding and testing with pesticides may happen in Germany,

multiplication may occur in Mexico, packaging in USA, and finally retail

in the EU. Given this, we must not lose sight of the global picture which

provides cause for concern, as the biggest 10 companies own up to 75%

of the worldwide market share.

This study also reveals that the misleading figure of «7000 seed

companies», quoted extensively by the corporations and politicians

to imply so many breeders, applies not only to breeders, but also to

multipliers, processing/treating companies and traders, collectively

labelled the ‘European seed industry’.

It sheds light upon some of the markets for individual crops or groups

of crops within the seed sector, where different rates of concentration

can be seen. For example, although the wheat market is dominated to a

lesser degree, in the extreme case of the UK, 45% of the market share

belongs to a single company; meanwhile 95% of the EU vegetable seed

market is in the hands of just 5 companies.

The question is therefore: is the EU seed market really as diversified

as the European Commission wants lawmakers and the general public

to believe? Or is this market in fact transforming rapidly from a seed

sector with a large number of competing small firms and farmers into

an oligopoly, increasingly dominated by a small number of transnational

agro-chemical-seed firms?

January 2014

Author: Ivan Mammana

Elisabeth Meur and Ivan Mammana