Principles of Plant Genetics and Breeding

436 CHAPTER 24
In the USA, the most significant increases have been
recorded in corn, in which average yield per acre rose
from 30 bushels in 1930 to about 70 bushels in 1970
and then to 140 bushels by the mid 1990s (see
Appendix 2 for conversion rates of units). The trends in
other major crops are similar, albeit not as dramatic.
Soybean yield rose fourfold between 1930 and 1998,
while wheat expanded by a modest 2.5% increase during
the period.
Seed market
The seed market is very lucrative worldwide. The US
leads the world in seed market size – about US$15.7
billion in 1997, representing about a 20% share of the
world market. In the same year, China and Japan used
$3.0 and $2.5 billion of improved seed, respectively. In
the US, total seed expenditure rose from $500 million
in 1960 to over $6.7 billion in 1997. Soybean and
wheat led the total amount of seed used in 1997 with
2.06 million and 3.08 million tons, respectively. Seed
use is a factor of acreage planted, seeding rate per
acre, cropping practice, and variation in agroecological
factors. In 1997, seed use in the USA for the major field
crops totaled 6.5 million tons.
The USA is a net exporter of seed, attaining an export
growth from $305 million in 1982 to $698 million in
1996. Major importers of US seed are Mexico, Canada,
Italy, Japan, France, the Netherlands, and Argentina,
accounting for about 72% of the total US export in
1996. On the other hand, US seed import grew from
$87 million in 1985 to $314 million in 1996.
Regulations in the seed industry
Plant breeders are particularly at risk of having their creation
or invention illegally used by competitors. This is
because their inventions (cultivars) or the knowledge
that led to them, are readily transported, imitated, or
reproduced with little difficulty and at low cost. Once
released for sale and planted, it is easy for competitors to
have access to the seed. Consequently, there are laws
(intellectual property rights) in place to protect seed
developers (see Chapter 15).
Apart from regulations that protect the plant breeder,
there are regulations that also protect the consumer.
The two key avenues for consumer protection are varietal
registration and seed certification, as discussed in
this chapter. Also, there are regulations that protect the
environment, especially when the invention derives
from genetic engineering.
Role of the private sector in
the seed industry
Early history
The first seed company in North America was established
by David Landreth in 1784. He published a seed
(vegetables) catalog in 1799. In 1976, W. Atlee Burpee
established vegetable and flower seed companies. US
crop producers practiced saving seed from the previous
crop and sharing seed with neighbors for planting in the
early 1900s. Even though there were commercial seed
producers, commercial seed was not well patronized by
farmers until seed certification programs that provided
quality assurance to farmers were introduced. These
early entrepreneurs were small-scale family-owned enterprises,
focusing on multiplying improved cultivars for
the public breeding system.
The single most influential crop in the growth of the
seed industry was corn. Open-pollinated varieties of
corn dominated production until the end of the 19th
century. The development of superior-yielding hybrid
corn marked the turning point in the shift toward commercial
seed by the 1930s. An estimated 150 companies
were in operation in the early 1930s, some of them
devoting resources to plant breeding in addition to
replication of seed in the corn production industry. By
1995, an estimated 95% of corn acreage was planted to
commercial hybrid seed. Hybrid corn was the primary
business of the seed industry by 1944. The domination
of the seed industry by the private sector began in
the late 19th century. Research and development was
intensified, resulting in the continuous development of
higher performing hybrids.
Growth of the seed industry
The Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970 and other
amendments gave the impetus for growth in the seed
industry. Heretofore, the private industry mostly had no
proprietary rights over their inventions (except for the
hybrid industry). This situation provided no incentive
for commercial seed companies to develop new cultivars.
The landscape of the seed industry has experienced
repeated alterations over the past 30 years, as mergers
and acquisitions eliminated many smaller companies
from the scene, and large companies became dominant.
A significant fact to note is that many of these acquisitions
were made by pharmaceutical and petrochemical
companies, many of which were multinational (e.g.,
Ciba-Geigy, Sandoz, Upjohn, Royal Dutch (Shell)).