Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Saturday, Oct 14, 2006
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Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Saturday, Oct 14, 2006 ePaper |
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Agri-Biz & Commodities
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Rice Industry & Economy - Bio-tech & Genetics After Bt cotton, hybrid rice market hotting up Harish Damodaran
Seeing benefits Sales likely to top 35,000 tonnes by 2010. Huge potential seen as hybrid rice accounts for more than half of China's rice area.
New Delhi , Oct. 13 After Bt cotton, it is the market for hybrid rice seeds that is hotting up. As per industry estimates, over 12,000 tonnes of seeds were sold during this kharif season, compared with 8,500 tonnes in 2005 and 6,100 tonnes the year before.
Market size
"We expect sales to grow by around 30 per cent annually and cross 35,000 tonnes by 2010," says Mr Mahesh Girdhar, Head, Bayer BioScience India (Proagro Seeds). Taking an average retail price of Rs 170 per kg, the current market is already worth some Rs 205 crore and looks poised to touch Rs 700 crore in the next four years. Assuming a seed rate of five kg per acre, the 12,000 tonnes sold this year would have been sown in roughly 2.4 million acres or one million hectares. The 35,000 tonnes projected for 2010 would cover almost three million hectares, which is still hardly seven per cent of the country's total 44 million hectares rice acreage.
Huge potential
"The potential is huge given that hybrid rice accounts for more than half of China's rice area. We are just at the take-off stage," notes Mr Girdhar. There is some parallel here with Bt cotton. Since its introduction in 2002, Bt cotton planting has soared from 0.1 million acres to an estimated nine million acres in 2006, or 40 per cent of the overall cotton acreage.
Bt cotton turnover
The turnover from Bt cotton — at Rs 900 per packet covering each acre — would gross Rs 800 crore this year. Further, just as the 15 companies that have so far launched Bt cotton hybrids are all from the private sector, it is the multinationals and domestic private breeders who are driving hybrid rice development too. If in Bt cotton, 55 out of the 62 approved hybrids are based on the US life sciences giant, Monsanto's proprietary `Bollgard' technology, in the case of hybrid rice, the market leader (one-third share) is the German multinational Bayer. Besides Bayer, the other major players are Pioneer Hi-Bred (a DuPont subsidiary), United Phosphorus Ltd (through Advanta India), Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company (Mahyco), DCM Shriram Consolidated Ltd (Shriram Bioseed Genetics India) and JK Agri-Genetics Ltd. All of them operate out of the Hyderabad-Karimnagar-Warangal belt that has emerged as a mini-Silicon Valley for the private seed industry. In contrast to the situation till even the last decade, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and State Agricultural Universities are nowhere in the scene. This is unlike in China, where Bt cotton and hybrid rice breeding has been largely public sector-led.
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