Beijing seeks home-grown seedmaker to dominate China market

Beijing is seeking its own seed developer to fend off global agribusiness behemoths like DuPont (DD.NYSE) and Syngenta AG (SYNN.VTX, SYT.NYSE) as the quality gulf looks set to widen between local and foreign products in China’s US$17 billion seed market, The Wall Street Journal reported. China, the world’s second-largest seed market after the US, currently limits foreign producers to minority stakes in joint ventures, and foreign ventures currently supply about 20% of the seed market, a level growers and analysts expect could rise. Current plans call for domestic seedmakers to double their share of the Chinese market to 60% by 2020.