Seeds innovation and regional providers of the technology services embodied in seeds in Argentina and Brazil

ANABEL MARIN; LILIA STUBRIN

Montevideo

Conferencia; IV Conferencia REDLAS ?Servicios, recursos naturales, y patrón de especialización comercial en América Latina?; 2015

UNCTAD, CEPAL, BID, Universidad de Chile, Universidad de la República y Universidad ORT de Uruguay

Argentina and Brazil are world leaders in agriculture; they have expanded production massively recently and have pioneered the adoption of agricultural technology intensive inputs. An important development question is thus: are these countries taking advantage of their position as agricultural leaders, to develop linkages with knowledge intensive providers. This paper explores seed innovation in Argentina and Brazil: how this has evolved recently, which are the main factors affecting it and which are the main actors driving it. As the strategies of foreign MNCs have been analysed in detail elsewhere, we focused mainly in the domestic firms which have been successful. We investigated domestic seed companies to understand how they have gained significant shares in the domestic markets: we analyse the type of innovations they develop, which specific markets and needs they cater, with which R&D strategies and with which type of organization. The research suggests that there are important opportunities for innovation and creating new directions of innovation in NRs, but also suggest that as firms become more advanced, the policy and business challenges become significant.