seed market

Market Structure of Seed Industry: Basic Character of Seed Market and Situation of Business Actors

        There have been few studies of the seed industry, at least in Japan, though it plays an important role in agricultural related industries and rural economy. The objective of this article is to present an analysis viewpoint and to establish a foundation for future research based on case studies. Specifically, I focus on analyzing the functional and structual characteristics of seed market.
       Seed play both part as the most basic agricultural input and as agricultural product itself. But in this article, I regard seed market as an agricultural input market, because seed is outcome of basic research and plant breeding, and it influences on whole agro-food chain, from other input industries, food processing and distribution industries, to farm producers and consumers. Economic value of seed is not less cash one but value in use as an articulation of agro-food systems that characterizes seed.
       If we pay attention the actors in the seed market, it would be percieved that the opposing as well as complementary relationships between public sector and private sector. And when we survey the history of seed market, there is remarkable trend, a sift of main actor from public sector to private sector, from private seed producers/distributors to transantional chemical companies.