Recent trends in Brazils corn seed market

Brazil has two corn crops. The first crop sowed from early August until late November also called the “summer crop” and the second crop sowed after the harvest of early soybeans, which happens from late January until March.

The second corn for the year 2009/2010 sowed since last January is being harvested now. This was the crop in which a significant portion of the planted area was sowed with GMO hybrids.

The seed companies offered to the market 87 hybrids with the insect resistance gene in addition to 225 conventional cultivars. So farmers had a lot of options in terms of GMO and conventional hybrids to select.

According the ABRASEM-Brazilian National Seed Association, from the total corn area cultivated in Brazil around 15% still use “saved seeds” by farmers.

So, the accessible market for the seed companies is around 85% of total planted area, estimated by Agriculture Department (report from August 5, 2010) in 12, 9 millions hectares. The first crop according the same source was about 7, 8 million hectares. From this area we have to deduct 15% of “saved seeds” which means around 6, 6 million hectares were planted with commercial seeds. Information available from seed association indicates that about 35% of seeds purchase by farmers for the first crop (summer crop) was GMO hybrids.

As far as the second crop 2009/2010, the farmers bought 42% of GMO corn hybrids. In some states the purchase of GMO hybrids reach more than 50% of total seeds sold. A good example of it is the states of Sao Paulo (in summer and second crop) and Paraná State in the second crop.

Another interesting aspect is that majority of the GMO hybrids are single cross hybrids. Limited amount of three way hybrids were offered with the trait for insect, and zero double hybrid or open pollinated variety were offered with the trait.

The single cross hybrids are having more and more participation in the Brazilian corn seed market, but the high percentage of area planted with three ways, double and varieties in some way create a limitation for the GMO hybrids growth.

In 2009/2010 crop the three way hybrids reached 60% of seeds purchased by farmers for the first crop (summer) and 65% in the second crop.

These figures have a great variation between the states. As an example in the first crop (summer) we have up to 95% of single cross hybrids in the region of West of Bahia, down to 46% in the Rio Grande do Sul state. In the second crop we had 88% of single cross utilization down to 57% in Mato Grosso do Sul state. The fact seeds companies. The seed companies are offering three way hybrids with GMO traits in area where the utilization of single cross are not significant.

The additional cost to buy a GMO hybrid have some impact in the decision to buy such hybrids, and off course the intensity of insect damage in the region is another fact affecting it.

Source: MN Agro