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 Main subject - sept/oct 2004
Seed Business in Paraguay
Dr. José Armando Paiva Aguero
Director DISE
japaiva@hotmail.com
Dr. Luís Enrique Arréllaga Acosta
Director Espírito Santo Group
learrelaga@gesgolondrina.com.py
Paraguay, a Mediterranean country with 406, 7 thousand km2, presents two regions with agro ecological capacities very different from each other. The occidental region, occupies around 60% of the country, where the main activity is cattle, and the oriental region, where the biggest part of the tropical woods could be found with woods of high commercial value that since 1945 started to give place to production fields of this region, in this last region almost the totality of the agricultural cultivars for consumption and exportation is produced.
The main cultivar, in terms of surface, is the soybean, even though the cotton keeps on occupying, economically and socially a prevalent place in the country.
Production of the main crops in Paraguay
Seed Production
The national seed industry started to present a more expressive development since the 80´s, implementing norms of production inspection, including a system of quality certification by using stamps applied by the Seed Direction temporarily between the years 91-92, in which this system started to be implemented again since 1999, in an agreement between DISE and Aprosemp. This agreement led to the reduction of the "white bag" market and a great improvement in the quality of the produced seeds. The conjoined work of the public and private sector, consequently, decreased the entering of seeds from neighboring countries without the due authorization and inspection.
Currently, the national seed production supplies 35% of the needs of the main cultivars.
Ciphers of the Seed Market
In the last decade, the use of own seeds reached 50% of the total used by the farmers, and the other 50%, shared equally between internal production and importation.
Through the sector's effort, this situation was reverted, and currently we are widely overcoming the imported seeds. However this won't be a reason for us to accommodate ourselves, since there is still an important fraction of seeds of different species with provision deficit. The estimated value of the seed importation reaches US$ 13,9 million annual where this sum could be part of the national PIB. The value of the products from the national seed growers reaches 24,4 million dollars, meanwhile the total value of what is sowed would be around 70 million dollars.
Challenges for the National Seed Industry
- Self- Efficiency- It must be constituted in one of the main objectives, as much for the producers as for the governmental sector, that the seed production destined to sowing must be obtained internally, mainly for those cultivars in which we rely on technology, production capacity and competitiveness.
- Increase the penetration level of inspected seed.
- Regularization of the genetically modified seed (GM). The entrance of the transgenic soybean seeds ( soybean RR ) that currently it is estimated that it occupies 60-70% of the soybean surface, it led to drastic reduction in the seed market, once it increased the own production.
- Emphasize the production for exportation of the cultivars in which we have quality and competitiveness.
- Facilitate the market between the countries of the region. Currently, the fluid market of neighboring countries to our country has not found reciprocity. The Mercosul must function in a two way via for the members of the region.
GMs seeds
We must recognize that, when the easiness of illegal introduction of products was given in our country, with the GM seed was not different, particularly with the soybean. The first biotechnological soybeans (soy RR) introduced in the country came from Argentina. Varieties that were not adapted to our conditions had been cultivated with little success; however the constant ingression of new genetic materials that were being released in the market of the neighboring country, with characteristics more adjusted to our latitudes, allowed the Paraguayan farmer to identify materials of high productivity, however they still are illegally produced . In Paraguay, seed producers and traders consider inadequate the situation that the governmental organisms make them put up with because of the non recognition of a technology that is already inserted in our country and is used by a great part of the farmers. We cannot go on being the country where the illegality is institutionalized. When liberating the RR soybean, the seed law that foresees these situations will come into force and the varieties that are being used in the market will have to be legalized, and also the ones that are not registered and that have their intellectual owners. Thereby we will exterminate with the currently existing threats on the international market of grains.
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