Concentration in Seed Markets Potential Effects and Policy Responses

Concentration in Seed Markets Potential Effects and Policy Responses
Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2018-12-04
Genre:
ISBN: 9264308369

Recent mergers in the seed industry have led to concerns about market concentration and its potential effects on prices, product choice, and innovation. This study provides new and detailed empirical evidence on the degree of market concentration in seed and GM technology across a broad range ...

Concentration in Seed and Biotech Markets

Concentration in Seed and Biotech Markets
Author: Koen Deconinck
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020
Genre:
ISBN:

The merger of Dow and DuPont, the acquisition of Syngenta by ChemChina, and the acquisition of Monsanto by Bayer have recently reshaped the global seed and biotech industry and caused concern about growing market concentration. This review documents market concentration in seed and agricultural biotech markets and discusses its causes and impacts. The available evidence suggests that concentration in seed markets varies strongly by crop and by country, while markets for biotech traits are considerably more concentrated. Complementarities between seed, biotech, and crop protection chemicals explain much of the observed structural changes in the industry, and new complementarities may be emerging with digital agriculture. Although growing concentration might in theory lead to higher prices and less innovation, evidence on this is currently limited; this tendency is also in part offset by the remedies imposed by competition authorities.

Seed Policy, Legislation and Law

Seed Policy, Legislation and Law
Author: Neils P Louwaars
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2002-08-23
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1482229315

Learn what it takes to create and implement a truly successful seed policy!This unique book brings together international experts on seed policy and law. While other books approach the subject from the perspective of seed industry development and privatization, Seed Policy, Legislation, and Law makes clear that a successful national seed

Concentration and Power in the Food System

Concentration and Power in the Food System
Author: Philip H. Howard
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2016-02-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1472581148

Nearly every day brings news of another merger or acquisition involving the companies that control our food supply. Just how concentrated has this system become? At almost every key stage of the food system, four firms alone control 40% or more of the market, a level above which these companies have the power to drive up prices for consumers and reduce their rate of innovation. Researchers have identified additional problems resulting from these trends, including negative impacts on the environment, human health, and communities. This book reveals the dominant corporations, from the supermarket to the seed industry, and the extent of their control over markets. It also analyzes the strategies these firms are using to reshape society in order to further increase their power, particularly in terms of their bearing upon the more vulnerable sections of society, such as recent immigrants, ethnic minorities and those of lower socioeconomic status. Yet this study also shows that these trends are not inevitable. Opposed by numerous efforts, from microbreweries to seed saving networks, it explores how such opposition has encouraged the most powerful firms to make small but positive changes.

The Impact of Seed Industry Concentration on Innovation

The Impact of Seed Industry Concentration on Innovation
Author: David Schimmelpfennig
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012
Genre:
ISBN:

Agricultural research drives increases in agricultural productivity, and the number of private agricultural input firms has been declining. The empirical relationship between the number of firms doing applied biotechnology crop research and the amount of research output they produce is investigated in a research profit function model. Increases in seed industry concentration have reduced biotech research intensity in the United States in the 1990s. Concentration and research are simultaneously determined and are influenced by the appropriability of research results and the state of technological opportunity.

Product Differentiation Choices and Biotechnology Adoption

Product Differentiation Choices and Biotechnology Adoption
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 115
Release: 2014
Genre:
ISBN:

The advances in agricultural biotechnology have brought opportunities and challenges to the agricultural input industries including the seed sector over the last few decades. The U.S. seed market has experienced major structural adjustments during this period. Since 1996 the rapid adoption of biotechnology in U.S. agriculture has been associated with mergers and acquisitions, leading to a more concentrated seed/biotech industry. It raises questions about the possible exercise of market power in the U.S. biotech seed industry. Will an integrated biotech seed company differ from an independent one in choosing the line of seed products? How do U.S. farmers evaluate different types of corn seeds? And how are the welfare gains from technological improvement distributed among market participants? This dissertation tried to answer these questions by investigating the product line choices of seed companies under imperfect competition and farmers' adoption of conventional and genetically modified (GM) seeds in the U.S. corn seed market during 2000-2007. In Chapter 2, I examine seed firms' product choices by considering concentration in the upstream biotech market, geographical competition, firm and market characteristics, and technological advancement, by using a system dynamic panel data model. I find that market competition has discrepant impacts on the product choices of biotech firms and independent companies. Firms' willingness to carry more varieties also differs by their market shares. In Chapter 3, I construct a multiple discrete choice model with random coefficients to estimate farmers' demand. I further impose a flexible correlation structure among products' observable characteristics, and panel effects on individuals' seed choices. I use the simulated Generalized Method of Moments for estimation. Results indicate that farmers' preferences are shifted away from conventional and single traited seeds to newly-introduced multiple traited ones. Their preferences could also become unstable by technology development. In Chapter 4, I investigate the welfare distribution of biotechnology advances among market participants and the welfare changes when biotech firms specialize in GM seeds and independent firms specialize in conventional seeds. I find that the benefits of biotechnology advances are received mostly by medium-to-large farms and a few biotech companies. Biotech firms also benefit from market segmentation.

Corporate Concentration and Technological Change in the Global Seed Industry

Corporate Concentration and Technological Change in the Global Seed Industry
Author: Sylvie Bonny
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2017
Genre:
ISBN:

In the past three decades, the seed sector has experienced, and is now again experiencing, corporate concentration trends. The fallout of this consolidation is the subject of numerous concerns. However, the seed sector is rather poorly understood. Thus, it is useful to understand it better and to investigate the potential impact on the agri-food chain of the trend toward increased corporate concentration. The first part of this paper presents the main characteristics of the global seed sector, its stakeholders, and its size in the agri-food chain. Next, the corporate consolidation trends of the seed industry over the past two years are examined. The technological evolution of the seed sector is also briefly presented. In the last part of this paper, the fallout of recent mergers and acquisitions in the seed industry are analyzed. Opposing views are expressed on the impact of these mergers and acquisitions in the agri-food chain: while certain stakeholders worry about the risk of food power by the biggest companies, some others expect useful innovations.