Argentine seed law to be revised to attract more biotechnology investments

The Argentine government is revising its seed law and expects that the new seed law will attract the multinational companies to increase their investment in biotechnology business, so as to promote the development of the biotechnology industry in Argentina, according to CCM’s September issue of South America Crop Protection Monthly Report.

The new seed law draft established by the National Seed Committee (CONASE) is submitted to a temporary committee organized by Argentine Ministry of Agriculture. The temporary committee's members are from the Farm Bureau and seed companies producing transgenic products, and they discuss some details of the draft at a meeting, but there is still no consensus so far.

Unlike the current seed law, the new seed law draft is mainly focused on the transgenic soybean royalty payments problem. Argentine farmers generally use the new soybean seeds generated from the old seeds bought from the seed companies without paying any royalty so as to cut the planting cost, but the new law is to prevent farmers from doing so, since this action has hurt many seed companies, thereby eroding their willingness to invest in Argentine biotechnology business. Corn planting area is the second largest in Argentina, but different from soybean seeds, corn's pollination process dilutes the transgenic traits quickly and farmers need to buy corn seeds directly from the companies every year to enjoy the yield-enhancing benefits.

Currently, the main argument is how to implement the royalty payments for the seed companies in the future. It is estimated that the new law will be continuously debated over the next few months and the Ministry of Agriculture is optimistic that the Congress may pass the draft at the end of 2012. "We've decided to push forward the seed law draft in an effort to prompt Argentina to be a leader in food production," Agriculture Minister Norberto Yauhar said in a press release in Aug. 2012. Although the new seed law will raise the farmers' cost in planting soybean, the yield-enhancing benefits brought by the new transgenic soybean seeds such as the new products made by Monsanto and the promising future of soybean processing industry in Argentina will guarantee the farmers' interest to some extent.    

  

As the new seed law will have the potential to improve the income from the seed royalty payments, many multinational enterprises are optimistic about the future of the Argentine biotechnology market.

 

Carlos Becco, Director of Syngenta Soybean Department in Argentina, believes that the establishment of the new seed law is a good news for the country, which not only helps his company increase the competitiveness in Argentina, but also creates more favorable conditions for attracting new investment in Argentina. The data statistics reflect the importance of the royalty payments in biotechnology investment. According to the information of the seed industry, the R&D of a new event represents an average investment of USD136 million and an average term of 13 years. 

 

The new seed law will help companies recoup their investment in a shorter period and improve companies' willingness to invest in new programs, thereby promoting the development of biotechnology. Among the biotechnology companies, Monsanto will become the biggest beneficiary when the new seed law is officially launched. Recently, transgenic soybeans planted in Argentina are mainly the Roundup Ready (RR) soybean produced by Monsanto. 

As the new seed law will be launched in the future, it is believed that the transgenic business in Argentina will recover, regaining the competitiveness against Brazil and even returning to the dominating position in South America.

 

Before 2006, the total authorized transgenic products in Argentina surpassed Brazil, dominating the biotechnology field in South America. But in 2006, the Brazilian government established a country-level biotechnology policy which redesigned the regulatory framework for transgenic application process. This policy streamlined the application process and made the benefits obtained by seed companies more reasonable. Thanks to Brazilian government's action, biotechnology investment environment in Brazil gradually became attractive and many multinational enterprises decided to develop their biotechnology business in Brazil instead of Argentina.  

 

In addition to the multinational companies, Brazilian enterprises are also willing to invest in biotechnology business under the favorable policy. For instance, an imidazolinone tolerant soybean co-developed by Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) and National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA) now is at the final stage of testing and will be launched in the coming years.

 

Due to the lack of the royalty protection in Argentina, the transgenic development in Argentina has stagnated and is surpassed by Brazil. According to the statistics, adding the new soybean and corn from Dow AgroSciences approved by the Argentine government, Argentina has approved a total of 27 events including corn, soybeans and cotton as of Aug. 2012, compared with 33 in Brazil. Argentina has more maize events approved than Brazil, 20 versus 18. As for soybeans, 5 events have already been authorized in Brazil, versus 4 in Argentina.  

Source: South America Crop Protection Monthly Report 1209

http://www.cnchemicals.com/Newsletter/NewsletterDetail_256.html

Content of South America Crop Protection Monthly Report 1209：

GM crops help increase consumption of pesticides in Brazil

Soybean seed in Brazil may be in short supply in 2012/13

Venezuela to import more rice by exporting urea

Brazil sells rice in stock

Brazil to invest USD18.9 billion in fertilizer industry

Pesticide companies face difficulties in registration in Latin America

Brazil extends credit limit for corn planting

Argentine seed law to be revised to attract more biotechnology investments 

Cheminova's Authority ® gets registration in Brazil 

Proficol enters Peru pesticide market

Ecuadorian government continues efforts to control snail plague

Argentina starts new round of control for grapevine moths

Cassava pests may break out in Southern Brazil

Brazilian transgenic planting area to increase by 12% in 2012/13

South America Crop Protection Monthly Report , a monthly publication issued by CCM International on 31^th of every month, offers timely update and close follow-up of South America's  Crop Protection industry dynamics, analyzes market data and finds out factors influencing market development.

About CCM

CCM is dedicated to market research in China, Asia-Pacific Rim and global market. With a staff of more than 150 dedicated highly-educated professionals. CCM offers Market Data, Analysis, Reports, Newsletters, Buyer-Trader Information, Import/Export Analysis all through its new proprietary product ValoTracer.

Please visit http://www.cnchemicals.com for more information

Guangzhou CCM Science & Technology Co., Ltd.
17th Floor, Huihua Commercial & Trade Mansion, No.80 Xianlie Zhong Road, Guangzhou 510070, China

Tel: 86-20-37616606

Email: econtact@cnchemicals.com

Source: http://www.cnchemicals.com/Detail/Release_1227.html

Fertilizer biweekly report to lead you to know the latest Chinese market news

On Aug. 22, 2012, after a long negotiation of 19 years, Russia formally entered World Trade Organization (WTO) and promised that it would open its markets of industrial products and agricultural produce to the WTO members, and its average tariff will be gradually lowered to 6.0% in 2015 from 9.5% in 2012. The trading environment between Russia and China will be improved further, which is conducive to potash import from Russia in the future.

Domestic fertilizer market inevitably suffers from oversupply and weak demand, resulting in the fact that the inventory of the fertilizer manufacturers stays at a high level and domestic market price of fertilizer has shown a decreasing trend in recent months. However, affected by the depressed international urea market, there is not any export transaction even if domestic urea granules ex-factory price has been below USD311.7/t - USD314.8/t. When Indian urea Invite Public Bidding is held in late September 2012, will the domestic price increase slightly?

As domestic soil fertility has obviously declined due to the excessive use of chemical fertilizer, the Chinese government issued a series of policies about strengthening the management of arable land in June and July 2012, aiming to strengthen the supervision of arable land protection with concrete action, so as to improve the soil fertility of China's farmland. In July 2012, General Office of Hubei provincial government released a notification, the Implementation of Structural Adjustment and Upgrade of Fertilizer Industry in Hubei Province, claiming that the management of new project access and elimination of backward production facilities should be carefully implemented during the 12th Five-Year (2011-2015)Plan period. Thus, a series of regulations of industrial upgrading arose in the 12th Five-Year (2011-2015) Plan in 2012, what are they? And what will they impact?

China Fertilizer Biweekly Report published by CCM, covers the latest dynamics and hottest information on China's fertilizer market. With columns of Expert column, Perspective on market, Policy, Planting environment, Brief news and Price update, it helps you make wiser business decisions and capture good investment opportunities more quickly. The report aims to help you master fertilizer industry trend analysis on the characteristics of the development of China’s fertilizer industry, stage of development, the balance between supply and demand, competition pattern, economic operation, the main competitive enterprise, investment and financing conditions, which is also to provide information support for the judgments of the future development of the fertilizer industry.

If you have any question or want to know more details about the report, please feel free to contact us.

About CCM

CCM is dedicated to market research in China, Asia-Pacific Rim and global market. With a staff of more than 150 dedicated highly-educated professionals. CCM offers Market Data, Analysis, Reports, Newsletters, Buyer-Trader Information, Import/Export Analysis all through its new proprietary product ValoTracer.

For more information, please visit http://www.cnchemicals.com.

Guangzhou CCM Information Science & Technology Co., Ltd.
17th Floor, Huihua Commercial & Trade Mansion, No.80 Xianlie Zhong Road, Guangzhou 510070, China

Tel: 86-20-37616606

Email: econtact@cnchemicals.com

Source: http://www.cnchemicals.com/PressRoom/PressRoomDetail_w_1212.html

Government Purchasing: Excited but Hard to Involve for Most Pesticide Enterprises

Since the Ministry of Agriculture of China (MOA) released the agricultural subsidy policy on 6 April, 2012, USD253.16 million (RMB1.6 billion) of subsidy has been allocated to 11 winter wheat planting provinces and areas in China to subsidize peasants' use of pesticides and foliar-fertilizer on winter wheat, with total planting area reaching 21.33 million ha., based on CCM International’s latest issue of Crop Protection China News.

The main reason for allocating such large amount of subsidy by the MOA in just two months is to ensure the high and stable yield of the winter wheat this year.  

Although the subsidy seems to be a tip of the iceberg of Chinese Government's agricultural budget made at the beginning of 2012, over USD194.41 billion, it is still a big cake for domestic pesticide enterprises.

Driven by the large profit in the subsidy, many domestic pesticide enterprises scrambled for the bid inviting of local governments. Some pesticide enterprises in other provinces and areas even made great effort to go cross-regional bid.

 

"We have paid great attention to the dynamic of government purchasing. We set the goal of achieving an order worth USD12.66 million when we got the information that the Henan Government was planning a government purchasing of USD63.29 million. Aiming to get the order, we set up a special team to prepare all the documents needed in the bid and tried our best to make all the procedures right," said a manager from Guoguang Agro-Chemical Co., Ltd., a large pesticide enterprise located in Sichuan Province.

However, even if enterprises are very excited about government purchasing and put a lot of enthusiasm on it, many of them still can't get involved, even for some large pesticide enterprises.

 

Owing to the cumbersome procedures of the bid inviting, lots of pesticide enterprises lack the experiences of preparing bid materials. As many pesticide enterprises located in different provinces went to other provinces for the bid inviting, they were forced to give up when they found that it was impossible to fetch the materials needed in a short time.

 

In addition to the cumbersome procedures and lots of bid materials needed, the high threshold set by local governments was also a big threat to the pesticide enterprises who want to gain the bid inviting, especially those medium and small sized ones.

 

Take the threshold of the bid inviting of pesticide purchasing by governments in Shandong Province and Henan Province for example. The two provinces invited public bidding by county-level authorities.

Suppliers should be independent legal entity with registered capital no less than USD1.58 million. Owing pesticide production license, pesticide registered license and product standard certification should be one of the main requirements and all these licenses should be valid. Pesticide products should get registered on wheat. Enterprises should issue qualification test report of provided products. Enterprises should own the quality control lab and five years of production experience of related products. And the capacity of the related products should exceed 1,000t/a.

 

Some provinces which invited public bidding by provincial authorities only allowed large and famous pesticide enterprises to participate.

 

Facing the high threshold set by governments, small-sized pesticide enterprises have to find their own ways to attend the bid. Aiming to meet the requirements, many small enterprises choose to co-found pesticide enterprises with manufacturers, large pesticide dealers, etc. Forming coalition bidder with qualified enterprises also can help them to participate.

 

As Chinese government's focus on the governments purchasing of pesticides increases year by year, domestic pesticide enterprises start to realize the importance of anticipating and achieving the bid inviting. It not only provides great profit but also a good marketing measure for a company's products due to the government's credibility. However, different from normal marketing channels, government purchasing seems to be a tough task for most of domestic pesticide enterprises. How to overcome the problems of less experience in dealing with governments, knowing well all the cumbersome procedures during government purchasing is now become the first puzzle for most domestic enterprises to solve.

Source: Crop Protection China News 1212

http://www.cnchemicals.com/Newsletter/NewsletterDetail_16.html

Content of Crop Protection China News 1212:

Government purchasing: excited but hard to involve for most pesticide enterprises

Glyphosate price rises against market trend

Large area in China attacked by drought

Full implementation of new pesticide policy in Hainan postponed again

MIIT releases new policy for renewal of pesticide production licenses

Zhejiang Wynca to set foot in seed industry

Shandong Dacheng ready for being backdoor listed

Jiangsu Kuaida to largely expand phosgene capacity

Jiangsu Lanfeng puts some new projects into production

Crop Protection China News, a semimonthly publication issued by CCM International on 15th and 30th(31st) of every month, aims to gain a deep insight into Chinese market, supply the latest market data and strategy support, analyze the newest legislation and policy and grasp the future market trend.

About CCM

CCM is dedicated to market research in China, Asia-Pacific Rim and global market. With a staff of more than 150 dedicated highly-educated professionals. CCM offers Market Data, Analysis, Reports, Newsletters, Buyer-Trader Information, Import/Export Analysis all through its new proprietary product ValoTracer.

For more information, please visit http://www.cnchemicals.com.

CCM International Ltd.
Guangzhou CCM Information Science & Technology Co., Ltd.
17th Floor, Huihua Commercial & Trade Mansion, No.80 Xianlie Zhong Road, Guangzhou 510070, China

Tel: 86-20-37616606

Email: econtact@cnchemicals.com

Source: http://www.cnchemicals.com/PressRoom/PressRoomDetail_w_1129.html

Imidacloprid Industry Webinar Successfully Held by CCM

Guangzhou China, August 3, 2011 - A free online Webinar on imidacloprid was successfully held by CCM at 18:00 (GMT+8, Beijing Time) July 28, 2011, which shows CCM’s insights about Chinese imidacloprid industry in China.

“This webinar was with huge success.” Martin Liu, the speaker of the webinar, stated “44 clients registered, the biggest number of registration ever since ,  and 13 clients of them attended, including leading companies such as BASF SE, Syngenta, GfK kynetec, etc.” “I’m so glad that 62% of the attendees think this webinar meets their expectation, and they also show great interest in other pesticides, such as azoxystrobin, mancozeb, glyphosate, and chlorpyrifos.” said Martin.

In this webinar, CCM reviews China’s imidacloprid industry by analysing the current developing situation, the problems that Chinese imidacloprid industry is facing with and how to solve these problems and forecast on its demand, supply and export trend in the future five years. By using plenty of figures and tables, the major detailed info has been showed to the participants. It gives the result that China’s imidacloprid industry will witness stable development and the dependence of Chinese imidacloprid production on overseas market will keep growing in the next few years.

“Actually all findings are from our ready reports and newsletters, especially the second edition report on Chinese imidacloprid named Production and Market of Imidacloprid in China, which focuses on industry's key characteristics, the latest dynamics and future trends, in terms of production, R&D, pricing, export situation, trade flow, consumption/demand, overseas market, key players' competitiveness and production cost, international collaboration, etc.” Martin explained.

He also points out that CCM launched a brand new newsletter called China Agriculture Investment Bimonthly Report, covering aspects of pesticide, fertilizer, feed and food industries. The newsletter is on promotion now, and the first issue is for free. People that are interested in the first issue, are welcome to contact CCM.” Martin said, “CCM will keep hold such kind of live webinars frequently. We are looking forwards to your attendances in CCM’s next webinar!”

About CCM

CCM is dedicated to market research in China, Asia-Pacific Rim and global market. With a staff of more than 150 dedicated highly-educated professionals. CCM offers Market Data, Analysis, Reports, Newsletters, Buyer-Trader Information, Import/Export Analysis all through its new proprietary product ValoTracer.
Please visit http://www.cnchemicals.com for more information or contact econtact@cnchemicals.com

CCM International Ltd.
Guangzhou CCM Information Science & Technology Co., Ltd.
17th Floor, Huihua Commercial & Trade Mansion, No.80 Xianlie Zhong Road, Guangzhou 510070, China