Top 20 Brazilian agrochem firms in 2015: Fall in sales and market share more centralized to top 10 companies

Official data from the Brazilian National Union of Crop Protection Products Industry (Sindiveg) has confirmed that there was a significant fall in sales of agrochemicals in Brazil in 2015. There was a reduction in sales of 21.56%, compared to 2014, with losses estimated at US$ 9.6 billion. The share of soybeans fell from 56% in 2014 to 52%. Data from Kleffman Group says that the reduction in Brazil contributed significantly to the first decrease in a global level in this decade with 9.8% - or US$ 54.6 billion – ending a growth cycle of five years.

 

The reasons presented by Sindiveg for the decrease in sales were the devaluation of the Real during this period, higher levels of smuggling of agrochemicals and difficulties in obtaining credit, affecting the total number of purchases.

 

Divided into categories, insecticides continue to be the largest selling products, but plummeted 35.2% in 2015 sales, compared to 2014. The second category in line was still herbicides, followed by the “other agrochemicals” and, lastly, acaricides. The demand for these products was higher for seed treatment in the field because of the growing number of plagues, but the agrochemicals market lost ground to the illegal trade of products. Some studies say that smuggled products make up about 20% of the total sales in the South American country.

 

Sindiveg cited, as an example of the volume of the illegal trade, the surplus of US$ 110 million of Paraguayan imports of emamecticin benzoate, in spite of it being needed. This active ingredient is likely to have been supplied to Brazil through the black market.

 

"The illegal market is a major problem in the sector, not only because of economic reasons, but mostly because of issues related to food security and the risk of contamination of the environment. We do not recognize the security of these products and, as a result, the food on the table of the population does not pass through the scrutiny of regulatory agencies,” said Sílvia Fagnani, executive-vice-president of Sindiveg.

 

The state that has registered more consumption of agrochemicals in 2015 was Mato Grosso, with 23% of the total, followed by São Paulo, Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul – all tied at 13%.

 

Data from the National Association of Crop Protection Companies (Aenda) diverge from data on the Brazilian market of the National Union of the Industries of Crop Protection Products (Sindiveg). According to Aenda, the total revenue from the Brazilian market of phytosanitary products was US$ 10.04 billion in 2015.

 

Further, revenue statistics from agchem companies reveal that the first ten companies concentrate US$ 8.49 billion in sales, which means that they have captured at least 84.52% of the total Brazilian market. The result represents a significant decrease, compared to 2014, when the top 10 major companies sold US$ 10.12 billion. On the other hand, there was an increase of market concentration between the top 10 of about 1.5 percentage point.