The seed is the starting point of every harvest, and controlling its availability means wielding enormous power over global agricultural production. Over the past thirty years, the seed sector has undergone an unprecedented wave of consolidation, drastically reducing the number of independent players.
From Farmers’ Seeds to Patented Seeds
For centuries, farmers selected, saved, and exchanged seeds, contributing to the vast genetic diversity of wheat we know today. With the advent of the Green Revolution and the intellectual property system on seeds, however, seeds gradually shifted from being a common good to a commodity governed by patents and exclusive rights.
According to a study published in Agriculture and Human Values (Howard, 2015), in the 1980s more than 7,000 seed companies were active worldwide. Today, over 60% of the global commercial seed market is controlled by just four multinationals: Bayer-Monsanto, Corteva Agriscience (Dow-DuPont), ChemChina-Syngenta, and BASF.
Wheat: A “Special Case” but Increasingly Industrialized
Wheat is not a genetically modified (GMO) crop like maize or soybeans, but that does not make it immune to concentration. Large corporations are increasingly gaining control of the wheat seed market through:
- Hybrid wheat (especially soft wheat, which prevents farmers from reusing seeds),
- Plant Variety Protection Rights (UPOV), which restrict the free exchange of seeds,
- Mergers and acquisitions of regional seed companies.
A study in the Journal of Agrarian Change (Bonneuil & Thomas, 2009) shows how multinational strategies have pushed toward high-yield, uniform, patented varieties, often at the expense of local diversity.
The Consequences of Seed Concentration
Seed concentration has far-reaching effects:
- Biodiversity erosion: local wheat varieties risk disappearing because they are not commercially profitable.
- Economic dependency: farmers are forced to buy seeds each year at prices set by multinationals.
- Crop and food homogenization: more uniform supply chains, less adapted to local conditions.
Possible Alternatives
Alongside large corporations, there are growing movements and networks reclaiming the right to seeds:
- Public gene banks, such as ICARDA, which maintains the world’s largest collection of wheat from the Mediterranean and the Middle East.
- Participatory plant breeding programs, where farmers and scientists jointly develop new varieties (Ceccarelli et al., 2012).
- Farmers’ seed networks and European initiatives such as the “Save Our Seeds” campaign.
The challenge is to balance scientific research, the need for new resilient varieties, and the protection of farmers’ rights.
Sources:
- Howard, P.H. (2015). Intellectual property and consolidation in the seed industry. Agriculture and Human Values, 32(3), 1–13.
- Bonneuil, C., & Thomas, F. (2009). Genetic diversity in agriculture: a challenge for seed companies and public authorities. Journal of Agrarian Change, 9(4), 476–490.
- Ceccarelli, S., et al. (2012). Plant breeding with farmers: a technical manual. ICARDA.
- ETC Group (2019). Who Will Control the Green Economy?
- FAO (2021). The State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.
- Howard, Visualizing Consolidation in the Global Seed Industry (2009)