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 Green line - sept/oct 2007
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BIOTECHNOLOGY
Brazil is speeding up its pace to adopt new genetically modified products. The CTNBio (National Technical Committee on Biossecurity) has recently held an open meeting to resolve on various events in cotton. These events related to the cotton cultivars Bolgard II, Bolgard RR and cotton LL, which will certainly influence the way this crop is grown since they will ease insect and weed control. Both types of control demand that several sprayings of, respectively, insecticide and herbicide be applied to ensure the normal development of conventional cultivars.
MARKET SHARE
Dow AgroSciences has recently acquired the Agromen seed company from Brazil, thus expanding its presence in the corn seed business. The size of the corn seed business in Brazil goes beyond the seven hundred million US dollars year, and any increase in the market share has a great impact. Dow AgroSciences director, José Manuel Arana, stressed that this strategy will create new opportunities for Bt corn, already under way to be marketed in this country.
WORLD SEED MARKET
According to figures collected by the International Seed Federation (ISF) the world seed market, as of July 2007, is 34 US billion dollars. The United States with 7.1 billions, is the first one followed by China with 4 billions, France with 1.9 billion, Brazil with 1.5 and Japan also with 1.5 billion. There is yet an estimated of 20 billion dollars worth of farm saved seeds, figure which seems to be downsizing in many countries.
HYBRID RICE
The director of the Latin-American branch of RiceTec, Mr. Markus Ritter, expressed his satisfaction on the growing interest of rice growers and researchers on hybrid rice, on occasion of the VI Irrigated Rice Congress in Brazil. Several research results on the agronomic traits of this species were presented to the public, while it was mentioned that the increase rate of utilization of hybrid cultivars exceeded 30% per year, for the last three years.
APROSEMP
The program to improve the use of technology innovations in the soybean chain of production in Paraguay is making a strong investment on personnel capacitating. The Association of Seed Producers of Paraguay (Aprosemp) has signed an agreement with the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel) to train agronomists at graduate level, in the area of seed production and technology. This past July the course was attended by more than 80 professionals, on occasion of the inauguration of the second course of the series.
COTTON
The present 2007/08 growing season will be the first in which commercial seeds of the cotton cultivar Bollgand I will be available in sufficient quantities. The promotion for the adoption of this technology innovation consists basically of charging US$57.00 for every 200 000 seeds, which on an area scale will amount to US$37.00 per hectare. The grower who does not buy certified seed from the Bollagard I but delivers a seed lot containing seeds from the cultivar will have to pay around US$100.00 per hectare worth of the technology tax, which aims at discouraging the use of own seeds. This is obviously a good strategy for the holders of the patent and seed producers.
CULTIVAR PROTECTION
The Paraguayan Association of Plant Obtainers (Parpov), has consolidated under the presidency of Mr. Luis Enrique Arrellaga. In a recent meeting of this organization he established the entity's priorities, focusing on a piracy combat as well as on the promotion for the use of more and better seeds. This comes as a consequence of the acknowledgement by growers of the benefits of the technological innovations on the improvement of the production chain.
PROSEMILLAS
The success of the Professional Master Seed Course in Brazil led the International Seed Center (Prosemillas) with headquarters in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, to establish an agreement with UFPel to offer this option to Spanish-speaking professionals. The first 15-day module involving two disciplines has been already delivered to participants from various Latin-American countries. This is a course especially designed for professionals that already have experience on seed production and processing.
ABRATES PRESIDENCY
After four years at UFPel, the Abrates office has moved to Londrina, in the state of Paraná, under the presidency of Dr. Francisco Carlos Krzyzanowski. Early this August, former president Silmar Teichert Peske and his colleague during the tenure, Prof. Francisco Amaral Villela, visited Londrina for the official mandate transfer. Present at the ceremony were, together with new president and new treasurer, Dr. José de França Neto, Dr. Ademir Henning, also former ABRATES president. Several issues were discussed at this meeting and it was agreed that, based on the membership composition of the association, it should collaborate with the seed sector as needed, whenever seed science and technology issues are at stake. Any information on ABRATES can be checked at www.abrates.org.br.
NEW OPPORTUNITIES
The Seed Association of the Americas (SAA), managed to gather the main actors of the regional seed business in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. This was considered a privileged venue to encourage business, and apparently the first negotiations will concentrate on forage crop seeds and vegetable seeds. Mr. Carlos Basso can certainly feel proud of himself for having promoted the creation of this association.
PIRACY
The Brazilian Congress, through its Agriculture Committee, has recently held a public audience on the use of pirate seeds. The reports presented by both, official and private industry representatives, agreed on the prejudices caused by illegal seeds to the agribusiness.
The Brazilian seed production is of about 1.8 billion tones, half of which corresponds to soybean, but half of the cropping area (approximately 23 million ha), is sown with illegal seeds. The official representatives at the Committee stated that the government will adopt a tough stand on the combat to seed piracy, which together with the private industry initiative, should have a significant effect on this issue.
PROTECTING HYBRIDS
The ISF has a position paper considering that, for all purposes including intellectual property protection, a hybrid is a variety. Distinctiveness, uniformity and stability of the hybrid can be assessed, either on the hybrid itself or on its parents, and the formula that links them. Some protection officials consider that a hybrid is not a variety as it would self-reproduce without change. This is, according to ISF, a misinterpretation of the UPOV Convention. Indeed, by the repeated use of its parents, a hybrid can be reproduced unchanged. Consequently, a hybrid fulfills the UPOV criterion for stability.
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