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 Main subject - sept/oct 2006
Latin America organizes itself to fortify seed business in the region
Prof. Silmar T. Peske
peske@ufpel.edu.br
Prof. Francisco Amaral Villela
Prof. Leopoldo Baudet
During past August the 20th Panamerican Seed Seminar from the Latin American Federation of Seed Associations (FELAS) took place at Fortaleza - CE- Brazil , rejoining more than 500 participants of the seed business in the region, being discussed aspects like tools to facilitate seed business, market magnitude, cultivar protection, certification, piracy control, royalties and technological fee, among others.
Magnitude of the seed business
Statistics are essential for a suitable planning, however data obtention is not easy, so that several times it is necessary to filter them in order to eliminate big distortions, and it can only be performed by someone closely related to the business. In this sense, Felas's ex-president Eduardo Villota has obtained reliable data about seed imports and exports in the region. The prominence refers to seeds from tropical forage seeds, represented mainly by Brachiaria seeds, in which Brazil exports over 30 million dollars/year to countries in the region. However, temperate climate forage seeds have a value that is similar to the export one, being Argentina and Uruguay the countries with higher exports. Another prominence are the horticultural seeds, a segment in which the countries in the region export and import several species. Chile is the country with the highest export amount, followed by Bolivia and Argentina, while Brazil is the eminently importer.
By analyzing the overall data covering export and import crops of the countries of the region, it is verified that Argentina is the one with highest export amount, with 79,500t in 2005 and an import amount of 18,700t, followed by Chile with 58,400t in exports and 8,300t in imports. Other countries that must be highlighted are México and Paraguay, with imports of 38,400 and 32,300t of seeds, respectively.
With regards to the origin of imports and exports, it is verified that 41% of the imports are from countries of the region, while exports reach 63%, meaning that selling to countries of the region seem to be easier due to the cultural bonds and geographic proximity.
According to the data, we can conclude that there is a great potential for seed market in the region, being the information spread through events such as the Panamerican Seed Seminar, constituted of a privileged forum to start and keep a trade relationship.
Mechanisms to facilitate the trade
Seed companie use several tools to lever their businesses, some legal and other management tools. Legal tool can be summarized by cultivars registration and protection, by biosafety rule and seeds production and trade rules. In term of management tools, it can be considered that the companies have a supporting tripod composed by research, production, and commercialization. If a company does not have one of the elements, it is crucial to look for partnerships, as for the seed producers who are partners of research centers. It is needed to keep competitiveness, with access to new products and technologies; and the research must be continuous, so that it can give any contribution in fact. No company can survive by itself, isolated; partnerships and arranged systems are essential. With regards to production, management goes through seeds quantity, quality, and cost, while research can not lose the focus on variety, which is the main item of the company and the marketing, showing a close relation with the other elements. A company does not survive from its production but from its sales, so that it needs incomes and, as the sale of today means the sale of tomorrow, it is necessary to get trust and credibility from the customer.
A fact that deserves to be registered in term of management is the need of the companies for a long-term vision, with high control levels and a strategic planning as to where they intend to go or to reach. We can not forget the obstacles to seed business too, mainly competitors customers and seed piracy.
Seed certification
Seed certification process in the region is unexpressive, except for Bolivia, where 70% of the soybeans seeds are certified. However, Brazil has recently approved a new seed law allowing certification to be done by private initiative. In this sense, the Fundação Pró-Sementes got the government permission to provide such service, that deserves prominence due to its potential success. In its second year of activities organization already has 177 seed producer subscribed for 10 species, enclosing a registered area for production of 50,000 ha.
Summarizing, the accreditation process adopted by the Fundação Pró-Sementes relies on five principles: agility, efficiency, efficacy, safety, and reliability. It is a simple and agile process, using computer tools, decreasing significantly the paper flow and making the access to information easy by means of Internet. The foundations of the certification process are the processes of pre-control (higher class seed), final product - post-control, training - human resources, preventive and corrective auditing, and the informatization of the processes. Production processes registration, conditioning and seed analysis in real time confer reliability, professionalizing the seed producer. Such certification process can be considered as really efficient, as said in one of its principles, because it provides great service at low cost, which is equivalent to near US0.500 per seed bag.
Public-private partnership
Competitiveness is healthy and several mechanisms can be used for maximizing the offer of more and better materials. In this way, the partnership between public and private seed producers shows some advantages, such as:
a) chances to offer more regional varieties with high quality;
b) competitiveness safety to small and medium companies in face of the concurrence of large companies;
c) more distribution channels and sales sites of these seeds, allowing the access of a larger number of farmers to the new cultivars;
d) the support and continuous flow of resources, with more flexible use and free of bureaucratic obstacles and discontinuation which are characteristics of public research financing; and
e) encompassing of a test net, assuring a much preciser evaluation of interaction aspects genotype vs. environment, allowing the regional release of cultivars. In Brazil, there is a successful example of such partnership between Embrapa and seed producers.
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