SEEDS STUDY

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The most important argument as to why the Commission statement is flawed is that even though seed production
and marketing involves actors in many stages (plant breeding, seed production, seed conditioning, trading, retail,
etc), in the end it is a few companies that control the seed market shares of the economically most important
crops. It should also be considered that eleven Member States joined the EU only relatively recently and those
Member States’ agricultural markets were not yet integrated in the common market, meaning that existing EU
directives on seed marketing were transposed differently into national laws. In addition, some Member States
also allowed some leniency in the implementation of the directives, and made certain exemptions. This has
created a complex picture of the EU seed market14.
The first part of this study gives a general description of the concentration phenomenon in the EU, with two
snapshots from two EU Member States, one focusing on market concentration and the other focusing on the
structure of the seed sector and the kind of enterprises active within it. The second part of the study focuses on
three particular crops: maize, wheat and tomato. Those crops represent a large economic value for the EU15 and
also give three different perspectives on concentration trends.
Methodology of the study
In order to understand the concentration and consolidation dynamic in such a complex sector, this study focuses
on the real market shares of the seed giants in different EU seed markets and describes the structure of the
EU seed chain. In the second part of the study, the focus is mainly on who controls the commercialised seed
varieties and on the real market shares of the mega-companies who own those varieties.
As mentioned above, there is little transparency in the sector. Clear data about the companies operating in the
seed sector and their market share are not available because they are not published. The only actors who have
information about market shares are the mega-companies themselves, and they rarely release such data into the
public domain because they consider it to be commercially sensitive. Indeed, most of the data, information and
figures used to determine market share for this study come from the analysis of financial reports, annual reports,
investor presentations, articles and studies released by those companies. Other data comes from sources such
as seed sector organisations16, NGOs, academics and intergovernmental organisations such as the ETC Group
and the EU institutions.
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12. Pioneer, Syngenta, Monsanto, Limagrain and KWS in 2011.
13.
14. Some civil society and sector organisations are also questioning the Commission line:
15. Maize alone represents a whole 26% of the economic value of the EU seed market. Wheat is the most widely cultivated agricultural crop in Europe and the tomato
is the most widely cultivated vegetable in the EU.
16. KWS, 2013 data for vegetables, maize and sugar beet, ; and 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,