Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 1. Estimated U.S. seed market shares for major field crops, 1997
Company Corn Soybean
Cotton
Pioneer Hi-Bred 42.0 19.0
Monsanto
1
14.0 19.0 11.0
Novartis 9.0 5.0
Delta & Pine Land
2
73.0
Dow Agrosciences/Mycogen 4.0 4.0
California Planting Seed Distributors 6.0
All-Tex 2.0
Four largest total 69.0 47.0 92.0
1
Monsanto acquired DeKalb in 1997 and Asgrow in 1998.
2
The merger proposed
between Monsanto and Delta & Pine Land in 1998 was called off in December
1999. Source: Fernandez-Cornejo, 2004.
Source: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2005.
Figure 1. Permits for release of GE varieties approved by APHIS.
By early April 2005, nearly 11,600 applications had been received by
APHIS since 1987 and more than 10,700 (92 percent) had been approved
(Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2005). Approvals peaked
in 2002 with 1,190 (figure 1). Most applications approved for field testing
involved major crops, particularly corn with nearly 5,000 applications
approved, followed by soybeans, potatoes, cotton, tomatoes, and wheat (figure
2). Applications approved between 1987 and early April 2005 included GE
varieties with herbicide tolerance (3,587), insect resistance (3,141), improved
product quality (flavor, appearance, or nutrition) (2,314), virus resistance
(1,239), and agronomic properties like drought resistance (1,043) and fungal
resistance (647) (figure 3).
