Paddy herbicide market buoyant despite shrinking rice acreage

Date:02-21-2012

Japan’s paddy herbicide market is lively at the moment, ahead of the rice-planting season and after a string of new pesticide launches starting in 2011, and competition expected to heat up amid the activity. Although domestic shipments of agrochemicals in general have been on a gentle decline in recent years, shipments of paddy herbicides have increased for five consecutive years because of rising demand generated by farmers’ wish to reduce their workloads by using herbicides that can substantially remove a broad spectrum of weeds including annual and perennial weeds.

Paddy herbicides shipment values are climbing even though rice acreage in falling. According to the Japan Crop Protection Association, the value of domestic shipments of agrochemicals hovered in the range of 315.4 bn yen ($4 bn)-332.3 bn yen annually in the 2007-2011 pesticide years, which run from October to September the following year, whereas the value of domestic shipments of paddy herbicides grew by some 15% to 63,523 mn yen in the 2011 pesticide year from 55,256 mn yen in the 2007 pesticide year.
Domestic rice acreage, on the other hand, contracted to 1.57 mn ha in 2011 from 1.67 mn ha in 2007. This would normally be a negative factor for the paddy herbicide market but growth was supported by a rising need for laborsaving products along with an expansion in the acreage handled per farmer.

The new herbicides feature quick action and long spans for applications. To win more market share, pesticide makers introduced many new herbicides with low administration volumes and fewer components. Kumiai Chemical Industry restarted sales of its Wolf series in response to strong requests from the market, releasing Wolf Ace granule 17 in December and Wolf Ace 1 kg Granule 51 and Power Wolf 1 kg Granule 51 this January. Sales were started in December of Syngenta Japan’s Maxi MX 1 kg granules, whose active ingredients are pretilachlor and mesotrione and which can quickly eliminate Scirpus juncoide, Monochoria vaginales and Monochoria korsakowii. Bayer CropScience’s Gole 1 kg granule, debuted this January, contains pyrimisulfan and fentrazamide as active ingredients and has long application span, from rice planting to the 3-leaf stage of Echinochloa oryzoides in the field.

The paddy herbicide market also saw the full-scale entry of Nippon Kayaku and the acquisitions of overseas products by Otsuka AgriTechno. Nippon Kayaku, which had been developing its herbicide business chiefly for fruit and vegetable cultivation and using toll production for its paddy herbicides, rolled out its Prestage 1 kg granule this month. Prestage, a formulation of Kaken Pharmaceutical’s pentoxazone, SDS Biotech’s benzobicyclon and DuPont’s bensulfuron methyl, is applied during rice planting and has stable, long-lasting residual efficacy. The company plans to extend its paddy herbicide product lineup in the future if the opportunity arises.

Otsuka acquired Bayer CropScience’s benfuresate line of rice and cotton herbicides in June 2011 (AgroNews 2011-07-15), which was followed by benzofenap this January, and plans to collaborate with domestic companies to develop its herbicides incorporating the two products.