생명공학 기술이 실용화되면서 종자는 단순히 씨앗이 아니라 농업생명공학의 필수불가결한 전략자원으로 재인식되고 있다. 본 논문은 국내 굴지의 종자회사들이 거대 다국적기업들에 인수되면서 그 존립기반이 위태로워진 국내 종자산업의 현실을 인식하고, 향후 세계 종자시장에서 경쟁력을 확보할 수 있는 방안을 모색하고자 하였다. 1. 종자산업은 유용 유전자원의 확보와 육종 연구개발을 위한 장기적인 투자가 필요한 산업이기 때문에 자본력과 연구역량을 갖춘 거대 다국적기업들이 독과점화가 심화되고 있는 현실이며, 우리나라를 비롯한 개발도상국의 종자주권이 위협받는 상황에 있다. 2. 글로벌 종자시장의 70% 이상을 주요 7개 거대 종자기업이 점유하고 있으며, 그 중 최대 종자기업은 몬산토(2018년 독일 바이엘사 인수)이고, 듀퐁, 신젠타(2017년 중국화공그룹 인수)가 그 뒤를 따르고 있다. 3. 거대 종자기업에 지나치게 과점화된 국내 종자시장을 점차 변화시켜 우리의 종자주권과 식량안보를 지키기 위해서는 국내 식물자원 및 육종자, 생산자를 정책적으로 보호해야 한다. 4. 종자산업은 오랜 연구와 많은 투자비용이 요구되는 지식기반산업이기 때문에 국내 종자산업 발전을 위해서는 민간기업과 정부가 유기적으로 협력하고, 외국의 관련기업들과도 다각도로 협업체계를 구축할 필요가 있다. 5. 융복합산업이라고 볼 수 있는 종자산업을 유망 수출산업으로 발전시키기 위해서는 토종 우량종자를 적극 발굴하고 품종육성에 대한 지속적인 연구개발투자 및 유용 유전자원 확보, 품종보호제도를 정착시켜 민간 종자기업들의 역량을 더욱 강화시켜야 한다. 6. 다국적기업들과 세계시장에서 경쟁할 수 있는 규모의 국내 종자기업들을 육성하기 위해서는 자본력과 연구개발 역량을 갖춘 국내 대기업들이 종자산업에 적극 진입할 수 있도록 향후 정부의 획기적인 정책적 지원이 필요하다고 보며, 또한 기존의 해외 중소 종자기업들을 인수·합병하여 다변화된 글로벌 종자시장에 점차적으로 진입하는 것도 하나의 전략이라고 볼 수 있다.

본 연구는 정부에서 시행한 종자산업육성정책이 농가 조수입에 어떠한 영향을 미쳤는지를 분석하기 위해 딸기 작물의 사례분석을 시도하였다. 딸기 작물의 종자육성정책의 결과물인 설향 재배와 이의 보급종 지원이 딸기농가의 조수입에 어떤 영향을 미쳤는지를 준모수적 분석방법인 성향점수 방법론과 모수적 분석방법인 생산함수 접근법 및 확률적 프론티어 접근법을 활용하여 분석하였다. 분석결과에 따르 면 설향재배로 인하여 농가조수입이 모두 증가하여 종자산업육성정책의 효과를 계측할 수 있었다. 그러나 보급종 수혜 자체는 그 효과가 미약한 것으로 나타났다.

China is a one of the largest agricultural countries in the world. China consumes around 12.5 billion kilograms of seeds each year. Suchhuge demand for seeds has made the Chinese seed market more and more attractive for investment. Through analysis on the present situation and existing problems of the seed industry in China and based on the current Chinese seed industry development, some future prospects for investments are indicated. This investigation was carried out to propose the appropriate strategies on the development of the Korea seed industry as it considers its entry into the China seed market as a new growth engine in the agricultural sector. The basic law regulating the Chinese seed industry is the PRC Seed Law that generally refers to the protection of germplasm resources, verification of varieties, seed quality issues, the import and export of seeds, seed administrative management, and various rights and obligations. The regulations were aimed at the protection of the rights concerning new varieties of plants. China has two main industry associations, the National Seed Association and the China Seed Industry IP Union, that are non-profit associations consisting of entities and people engagin in the seed scientific research, production, operation and management. The China National Seed Group Co., Ltd. (“Sino Seeds”) is the market leader in China regarding the seed industry. The chinese government, however, encourages investment from multinational companies as well as importation of modern crop planting management technologies and equipment. It supports the entry of investors with proven experiences in breeding and germplasm resources expansion and R&D. There has never been a better time for multinational companies with proven seed industry experience to look at building relationships with the Chinese government and enterprises.

The size of the global seed market and the volume of seed trading have rapidly increased in the 21st century where the total market size by 2012 was approximately 45 billion USD, of which 79% were field crops, 17% were vegetables and 4% were forage and turf. While the volume of the trade and the market as a whole expanded, the share of the market also changed as the top 9 largest seed companies controlled 62% of the market in 2012 as opposed to just 17% in 1996. As for the regional status of the market size, North America and Asia-Pacific regions had 69% of the total market worth in 2014. The changes in the seed market led to various adjustments in the seed trading regulations where the protective behaviors of major players affected the entire market. Asia Seed Co., Ltd. is a vegetable seed company founded in 1992 and is thriving each year in exporting new hybrid vegetable seeds to clients around the world. As a second mover to the saturated market that is dominated by a few companies with large shares, the company has set up four major strategies to compete in the global market. First and the most important strategy is to increase investment in R&D portion and strengthen it. In most types of businesses, investing in R&D is the key to success. Especially in the vegetable seed industry, the competitiveness of a company is decided by the variety of its seeds that result from the R&D department. The second strategy is the localization and incorporation of the company. Globally, vegetable crops vary while the domestic Korean varieties are not even known in other countries. To overcome this problem, it is important to open branches and subsidiaries to enter the market with local types of varieties that will appeal to customers and farmers. In relationship to R&D investment, Asia Seed Co., Ltd. has already set up a breeding system in India and keep expanding to other nations as well. The third strategy is to develop new materials for both the niche market and new possibilities. The last strategy is to have manpower training system that is required in all other industries. In order to assess the performance of our hybrid seeds, trained managers will need to travel and visit plots to acquire the results of trial and offer instructions when they are not satisfactory. Moreover, it is essential for collecting genetic materials from around the globe in order to develop better hybrids for the future of the company. Seed exporting, while difficult, can be a charming and lucrative business. With enthusiasm in dealing with challenges and opportunities, I will contribute more ideas and know-hows on how the company deals with those choices and possibilities.

Crop produce comes from seeds. It is important to have elite seeds for cultivation and harvesting. There are two major types of seeds in the seed market: F1 hybrid seeds and open-pollinated seeds (OP, traditionally pollinated). Farmers in developed countries plant F1 hybrid in most cases, while farmers in developing countries plant mainly OP. In fact, 60-70% of seeds planted in India and China are OP because OP is significantly cheaper. There are several reasons why the seed industry is important. First is for global food security. Based on the fact that the global population continues to increase steadily, additional productivity of 70% will be required to feed the global population by the year 2050. Second, seeds were traditionally used as food, both fresh and feed, but have now become materials for future industries of medicine, pharmaceutics, functional foods, energy, and may other applications. Third, new breeding programs based on biotechnology have changed the seed market dramatically. These programs are highly competitive and indeed play a major role, not only in the reduction of breeding time, the development of various genetic sources, the enhancement of purity and cost-saving, but also for the selection of value-added varieties. In Korea, F1 breeding began 65 years ago and the breeding programs for several vegetables and rice are in the top class worldwide. In addition, for the first time in 1999, a private seed company in Korea employed biotechnology for the purpose of crop breeding to develop platform technologies that could be utilized in the breeding practice. The major achievement so far is the development of DNA markers associated with resistance to disease, tolerance to the environment, and functional aspects. The application of genotyping has made many services possible, such as the purity control of F1 and inbred lines, variety verification, MAS (marker assisted selection), and MAB (marker assisted backcrossing). In addition, cell fusion and DH technologies have helped breeders to solve breeding limitations. There have been many cases of successful crop transformations, however, no GM varieties have been successfully commercialized in Korea. I bet this is inevitable, though. And it should be, because Korea imports lots of GM products, equivalent to $3 billion every year. More seed production and higher crop quality require new R&D strategies for breeding practices in the seed industry. Thanks to genomics information with big data and anti-GMO policies, new technologies are on the horizon, including genomic breeding, genome editing, in silico breeding and NBT (new plant breeding technology). I am going to talk more about the direction and strategy of R&D for crop breeding.