Visualizing Consolidation in the Global Seed Industry: 1996–2008

Philip H. Howard
Additional contact information
Philip H. Howard: Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies, Michigan State University, 316 Natural Resources, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA

Sustainability, 2009, vol. 1, issue 4, 1-22

Abstract: The commercial seed industry has undergone tremendous consolidation in the last 40 years as transnational corporations entered this agricultural sector, and acquired or merged with competing firms. This trend is associated with impacts that constrain the opportunities for renewable agriculture, such as reductions in seed lines and a declining prevalence of seed saving. To better characterize the current structure of the industry, ownership changes from 1996 to 2008 are represented visually with information graphics. Since the commercialization of transgenic crops in the mid-1990s, the sale of seeds has become dominated globally by Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta. In addition, the largest firms are increasingly networked through agreements to cross-license transgenic seed traits.

Keywords: seed industry; consolidation; concentration; oligopoly; information graphics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (32)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/1/4/1266/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/1/4/1266/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:1:y:2009:i:4:p:1266-1287:d:6464

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().