Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
distinguish private-sector proprietary varieties from seed originating in the
public sector.
Estimates of the size of the global commercial seed market in 2006 vary
between $20 billion and $34 billion. Estimates of commercial seed value based
on sales by companies that develop the seed may be somewhat lower than
estimates based on farmer purchases. For purposes of historical comparison
and disaggregation, we take an intermediate sales-based figure for commercial
seed reported by the Context Network (2007), $22.9 billion. In addition, the
value of farmer-saved seed in 2006 is estimated at $6.1 billion. Based on these
two amounts, the total value of crop seed used in 2006 is estimated at $29
billion. 2 The $22.9 billion of commercial seed can be further subdivided into
$19.6 billion of proprietary seed ($11.8 billion of conventional proprietary
seed, $7.8 billion of GM proprietary seed, and $3.3 billion of public-sector
seed) (table 2.1).
Table 2.1 shows estimates of the real value (in constant 2006 U.S. dollars)
of the world seed market. Between 1995 and 2006, real market sales of
commercial public sector seed declined, while sales of proprietary seed
increased markedly. In all likelihood, this trend began well before 1995. In
recent years, market sales of proprietary seed have been at least six times those
of seed from the public sector.
Table 2.1. Size of the global seed market
ISF
value of
total
seed
Million constant 2006 U.S. dollars
1995 13,447 95 13,542 5,550 6,333 25,425
2001 11,847 3,645 15,492 3,539 5,923 24,954 34,173
2002 11,210 4,148 15,358 3,483 6,390 25,231 33,631
2003 11,084 4,938 16,022 3,409 6,694 26,125 32,922
2004 11,525 5,869 17,394 3,315 6,616 27,325 32,013
2005 12,082 6,815 18,897 3,408 6,402 28,707 30,979
2006 11,800 7,800 19,600 3,300 6,100 29,000 34,000
Sources: USDA, Economic Research Service using Context Network (2007) for all
columns except ISF value of total seed, which is from International Seed
Federation (ISF). Values adjusted for inflation by the U.S. Gross Domestic
Product implicit price deflator (Economic Report of the President, 2009).
Proprietary
conventional
seed
Proprietary
genetically
modified
seed
Total
proprietary
seed
Public
commercial
seed
Total
value
of all
seed
Farmer-
saved
seed
Year
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