Industry Profie: Food Crop Seed Industry in Indonesia

MARKET INTELLIGENCE REPORT ON

DEVELOPMENT OF FOOD CROP SEED INDUSTRY IN INDONESIA

April 2009

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Introduction

The country's production of rice in 2008 rose 4.76% to 60.28 million tons from 57.16 million tons in 2007 in dry unhulled rice (GKG). The Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) said the production in 2007 rose 4.96% from 55.4 million tons in 2006. .

The continued increase in rice production in the past four years is partly attributable to the wider use of certified rice seeds by farmers as indicated by the increase in production of certified rice seeds in the same period - from 117,000 tons in 2005 to 177,000 tons in 2008.

The production of certified rice seeds has reach around 50% of the country's rice seeds requirement of around 360,000 tons per year for 12.66 million hectares of rice-fields.

The growing demand for high quality seeds has encouraged investment in rice seed breeding industry in the private sector. Investors have established companies to produce high quality seeds and existing producers expand their production capacity. PT Sang Hyang Seri (SHS), a state company operating in seed breeding industry has built new production facility with a production capacity of 10,000 tons of seed a year.

Interest has also been shown by foreign investors such as PT BISI Internasional, which is affiliated to the Charoen Pokhpand group, PT DuPont Indonesia (Pioneer), PT. Syngenta Indonesia and PT Bayer Indonesia.

Rapid growth has also been recorded in the production high quality corn seeds. More farmers have grown hybrid corn seeds. Now farmers have used hybrid corn seeds in larger quantity than conventional corn seeds. The use of hybrid seeds in rice fields is relatively small. Hybrid rice seeds make up only 5% of the country's total requirement of high quality rice seeds.

Production of hybrid rice and corn seeds has been dominated by a number of companies affiliated to multinational agribusiness companies like PT. Bisi Internasional, PT. Dupont Indonesia and PT Bayer Indonesia. A state company operating in seed breeding industry is PT. Sang Hyang Seri.

Regulation has also contributed to the rapid expansion of seed breeding industry in the country. A regulation requires seed importers to start producing seeds in the country after operating for two years.

The prospect of business in seed breeding industry is encouraging especially as the government has introduced and sought to popularize the use of hybrid seeds among the farmers. High technology and large investment would be needed to produce hybrid seeds, therefore, it is expected that only large financially powerful companies could develop seed breeding industry.

Types of Rice seeds

Rice seeds are produced from the generative breeding of rice plants . There are four classes of rice seeds of high yield variety -- breeder seeds ( BS), foundation seeds (FS), stock seeds (SS), and extension seeds (ES). The four types of seeds are produced by agencies or bodies named by the National Seed Body and they must have certificate.

The seeds used by the farmers are generally the extension seeds which are the offspring of breeder seeds or foundation seeds which are well kept that their identity ands pure bred are maintained to keep a certain quality standard.

Breeder seeds are ones that is the source of foundation seeds. Foundation seeds are the first offspring of breeder seeds . Stock seeds are the offspring of breeder seeds or foundation seeds.

Each type of the seeds is given different label. BS is given a yellow label, FS a white label, SS purple label and SS a blue label. There is another certified type with pink label which is the first offspring of ES, but since 2007 it is no longer produced on low productivity.

Major Seed Producers

Certified high quality conventional seeds are produced mainly by state companies or agencies PT Sang Hyang Seri and PT Pertani. In addition, there are many small private producers already securing certificate from the agriculture ministry. Hybrid rice and corn seeds are generally produced by private companies in larger scale. There are 18 producers of hybrid rice and corn seeds in the country , up from only two in 2005. Most of them are private companies with only two state companies PT Sang Hyang Seri (SHS) and PT Pertani.

Private seed producing companies generally produce hybrid rice and corn seeds, and state companies produce hybrid and conventional high quality rice and corn seeds as well as other cereal seeds such as soybean, mung bean and groundnut seeds.

Since 2006, food crop seed breeding industry in Indonesia has continued to grow marked with the establishment a number of producing companies including foreign companies producing hybrid rice and corn seeds in large scale. Among the producers is PT. Dupont Indonesia. PT. Triusaha Sari Tani, Bayer Indonesia, PT. Karya Niaga Beras Mandiri, PT. SourceAlam Sutera, and SHS. Some of the companies are affiliated to multinational companies such as DuPont (Pioneer), Monsanto, Bayer,etc. .

PT Sang Hyang Seri (SHS)

PT. Sang Hyang Seri (Persero) established in 1971 on a government regulation No.22 Year 1971 with the status of PERUM (Public Company) in Sukamandi Subang, West Java. In 1995, its status was changed into limited company

SHS produce rice , corn, peanut and vegetable seeds with annual production capacity of around 25,000 tons . It has anew facility with an annual capacity to produce 10,000 tons of seeds with the system of IRSPP (Integrated Rice Seed Processing Plant). The new production facility is integrated with wet and dry laboratory located in Sukamandi, Subang, and West Java coming on stream in 2008.

PT Sang Hyang Seri has established cooperation with multinational seed producing companies such as Shenzhen Boshi BioScience (BOSHIMA) Co. Ltd. (China) and Devgen (India) to produce hybrid rice seeds. The cooperation is to reduce dependence on imports. Through the cooperation, PT SHS will have profit share of 50% in royalty from seeds sales.

Under the cooperation, an Indonesia-China Hybrid Seed Center was built in October, 2008 in Karawang.

SHS produces corn seeds of the composite type in cooperation with domestic and foreign partners . SHS also produces seeds of other food crops including soybean seeds , mung bean and groundnuts.

PT Bisi Internasional Tbk.

PT. Benih Inti Suburintani Internasional (BISI) was established in 1983 by the Charoen Pokphand Group and now it is a listed company . It produces seeds, pesticides and distributes fertilizers.

The majority shares of the company are owned by the Jiaravanon family and 23% stake is owned by Midsummer Limited.

Its seed production facility is located in Kediri, East Java. Bisi has three subsidiaries (1) PT Tanindo Intertraco, which operates in the distribution and marketing of hybrid rice and corn seeds, vegetable seeds, and seeds of other food crops; (2) PT Multi Sarana Indotani which produces pesticides and (3) PT Tanindo Subur Prima which distributes and sells vegetable seeds imported form Chia Thai Seed Co Ltd.

Bisi is a fast growing seed producer. In 2008, it expanded its production capacity for hybrid corn seeds by building two new factories with total capacity of 40,000 tons per year with an investment of Rp 276 billion. The expansion increased its production capacity for hybrid corn seeds to 60,000 tons per year.

PT. DuPont Indonesia (Pioneer)

PT DuPont Indonesia started operation in Indonesia in 1988. PT DuPont Indonesia is a subsidiary of Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc., in Des Moines, Iowa, which was established in 1926 now a leading company in farm plant genetics with business units in 70 countries.

This company has sold hybrid corn seeds in Indonesia since 1988 using the brand of Pioneer. Dupont has released 23 types of hybrid corn seeds Indonesia, but only six of the varieties P7, P11, P12, P13, P21, and P23, now still sold in the country .

Since 2007, DuPont has released varieties of hybrid rice seeds Padi Pioner 1 (PP1) and PP2, which are bred itself .

PT. DuPont Indonesia has established cooperation with BB Padi (Rice Plant Research Center ), which has been licensed to produce and sell hybrid rice seeds called MARO. MARO hybrid rice seeds are hybrid seeds developed by Indonesian researchers of the BB Padi

PT. DuPont Indonesia has seen the superiority of MARO hybrid rice which has a high productivity of 8.85 MT gkg / ha. The paddy seeds are filled out. Apart from resistant to diseases MARO rice food is fragrant.

PT Bayer Indonesia, CropScience Business Group.

Production of certified rice seeds reaches 181,000 tons

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