Global rice seed market crossed five billion market in 2018 and expected to grow continually in the future. Rice is one of the leading broad-acres crops, and the seed market is expanding to new horizons with transformation into hybrid varieties.
The growing privatization of rice seed market in Asia-Pacific region fuels branded rice seed growth. Branded/proprietary rice seed market in Asia-pacific grew significantly due to China and India. China was the most dominating hybrid rice market in the world. Though U.S. & Brazil smaller rice acreage contribution, the market revenues were significantly large. Hybrid rice market in Brazil and the U.S. has been remarkable. It has a proven more efficient for improving the yield in comparison to a seed cost increase.
Among approximately 40,000 types of rice, people consider Basmati, Italian Arborio, and Thai Jasmine to be the favorites worldwide. Asia is both the largest producer and the largest consumer of rice, producing about 90% of the world’s rice. The Japanese culture celebrates the 19th of April as Rice Ball Day. Historians can trace the history of rice balls back to the 11th century, when people called rice Tonjiki. Authorities designate September as National Rice Month to raise awareness about rice and promote its cultivation, given its growing nutritional and global importance.
Market drivers and opportunities:
Analysts predict that global consumption and ongoing innovations will drive significant growth in the rice seed market. A driving factor that will boost the rice market globally is the increase in seed replacement rate. Seed replacement rate or the seed replacement ratio gives us a calculative idea of the total cropped area sown with certified seeds in comparison to farm-saved seeds.
It also denotes the actual quality seeds distributed to the farmers to the actual seed required for the cultivation of the crops. Another factor that shall favor the rice seeds market globally is the improvements in varieties of hybrid seeds for rice. Farmers and gardeners cultivate hybrid seeds by cross-pollinating plants.. This is an innovative step in the field of agriculture and gardening and contributes to be as one of the main factors to the dramatic rise in agricultural output. Open pollination and clonal propagation are alternatives to hybridization.
Opportunities
All of the hybrid seeds planted by the farmer will produce similar plants. However, the seeds from the next generation of those hybrids will differ from the desired characteristics. Hybrids are selected to enhance the characteristics of the resulting plants. These improvements include disease resistance, greater uniformity, better yield, and improved color. An important factor is heterosis or combining the ability of the parent plants. Experts predict that molecular breeding will create greater opportunities for the global rice seed market. Molecular breeding uses closely linked DNA markers to assist in selecting desired traits. These markers assist in selecting a particular breeding objective.
Other factors that will drive growth in the rice seed market include the increase in export varieties of rice seeds. Additionally, the economic affordability of rice seeds will contribute to market expansion. Analysts segment the global rice seed market based on type, hybridization technique, treatment, and grain size. Based on type, the market is segmented into open-pollinated varieties (OPV) and hybrids. The open-pollinated grains are referred to grains that will breed true. Open-pollination means that plants of an open-pollinated variety can self-pollinate or that another plant of the same variety can pollinate them. The resulting seeds will produce plants that are roughly identical to the original plant.
On the basis of the hybridization technique the rice seed market can be segmented into two-line system and three-line system.
