Nyon, Switzerland (July 6, 2021) – Like many other sectors, Marcel Bruins says the global seed sector has faced an unprecedented year with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The seed sector did not come to a grinding halt,” Bruins says. “Seed companies around the world remained very active in producing, breeding, and trading quality seeds.”

Bruins, the moderator of a panel discussion Tuesday during the International Seed Federation (ISF) Virtual Congress 2021, says it is clear that the pandemic meant hardship for a lot of people. So, he adds, it’s important to try and learn from it.

The panel of Csaba Gaspar, Program Manager, OECD Seed Schemes; Lee Ann Jackson, Head of the Agro-food Trade and Markets Division, OECD; Arthur Santosh Attavar, Chairman and Managing Director, Indo-American Hybrid Seeds; May Chodchoey, Executive Director, Asia and Pacific Seed Association (APSA); and Szabolcs Ruthner, ISF Regulatory Affairs Manager, discussed the impact of the pandemic on the global seed sector and what to expect going forward.

Bruins says it’s important to understand the global seed production chain and the current challenges to guide policy responses to safeguard the seed supply chain.

The Pandemic's Impact on Global and Asian Supply Chains

The OECD has studied the impact on the COVID-19 pandemic on the global and Asian supply chains, says Gaspar. In particular, he says concerns were raised in Japan last year about not having enough seed for the next season with the possibility of supply chain disruptions.

The study, Gaspar notes, found the Asia-Pacific region was more affected by the COVID-19 pandemic than other regions. Some Asian countries suffered from restrictions to the movement and transportation of seed, he says.

An APSA study, Chodchoey says, early in the pandemic in April 2020 showed companies finding that the highest impact was related to the international shipment of seed due to high freight costs. Other regions were seeing similar impacts, she says.

Seed trade in 2020 in Asia experienced a slight drop in the volume of exports, Chodchoey notes. Current information is showing the trends improving and a slow recovery so far this year, although she says some of the same concerns, such as high freight costs, remain.

The Resilience of the Seed Industry

Gaspar says information from seed companies all over the world shows the resilience of the industry.

“Despite the challenge, the global seed supply chain was reasonably resilient during the crisis,” Gaspar says.

Questions, however, remain about how long the pandemic will last, he cautions.

“Even though in some areas of the world things are improving, the problem is there,” Gaspar says. “Many parts of the world are still suffering from COVID-19, so we are still not over the crisis.”

As the seed industry starts to look ahead, Ruthner points out some issues that have been identified on a global scale involve labor and access to transportation for seed, as the price of transportation has increased. Administrative problems involving processes such as import and export permits were also evident, he says.

“Companies reacted very fast to these challenges,” Ruthner says. “They implemented measures in-house to protect their workers but still maintain a good level of operation, so I think this was a positive experience for us.”

Many governments declared seed an essential business, which helped companies maintain their operations, Ruthner says.

“The bottom line is no farmer was left without seed, so I think that’s the biggest aim for our sector,” he says. “We fulfilled our primary goal and primary objective to provide farmers with sufficient, high quality seed.”

Lessons For Seed Companies

Companies, including Attavar's in India, felt a quick impact from the pandemic. He describes it as “quite challenging when we started out” as it was around the beginning of the growing season when the pandemic struck, leading to a lockdown and so much uncertainty.

Seed was classified as essential, unlike in the past when seed was included with the rest of the agriculture sector, so Attavar says that “was a big help to us.”

Transportation was a challenge and different ways needed to be found to transport seed, he says.

“We had to get the seed to the customer,” Attavar says. “We quickly adapted and found different ways” from trains, trucks, and every way possible. “It really helped us to adjust to that situation. Every state had different rules. We were able to get material there on time. It really was a learning experience to adapt to a different way of operating.”

Attavar expects some changes to company’s operations which were implemented during the pandemic will remain in place.

“We started moving to the new normal, which according to me will probably stay as a change and we’ll never go back to the old,” Attavar says.

For example, he notes digital platforms have been used more often for exchanging information from fields while travel was heavily restricted.

“We hadn’t done that before because people would travel,” Attavar says. “A lot of that will stay as part of routine matters. That will help us cut some unnecessary expenses. We realized there is a lot we can do without travel.”

Attavar says the company is now more prepared for uncertainty in the future. The company now plans to carry some products with 24-month availability, he says.

“We don’t know if there will be another lockdown,” Attavar says. “The uncertainty factor is so high, so we have to take a risk.”

The risk is even higher internationally than domestically due to the movement of material, he notes.

“Our forecasting has to be accurate,” Attavar says. “We want to make sure we have enough data and sometimes it’s a gut feeling so as to make the right decision. The quality of the data is a challenge.”

Chodchoey says other good practices that many companies have identified include protocols on sanitation for workers on site. Policies to work from home have also been implemented, including offering Internet access for employees.

Chodchoey adds companies can also offer incentive packages and are trying to plan better for planting next season. She says those are among the recommendations from members that could be useful for seed companies still coping with the pandemic.

Monitoring Possible Policy Changes

The OECD has been extensively monitoring policy changes during the pandemic to gain a real-time look at what is going on, Jackson says.

“We saw a wide variety of measures implemented,” she says.

Jackson says it will continue to be important to avoid trade disruptions, along with recommending keeping an eye on the periphery, and investing in communication coordination and transparency.

She explains seeds can cross borders many times. Keeping trade moving was really critical in terms of the resilience of the supply chains, including for seed.

The shipping sector is one example of keeping an eye on the periphery, Jackson says, as bottlenecks remain, leading to impacts on other sectors such as the movement of seeds.

“The shipping sector is still trying get the ships to where they need to go and there are holdups at port which then cascade all the way through,” she says. “It’s not a one-dimensional supply chain.”

Jackson adds one of the big lessons from the pandemic is to invest in communication mechanisms before they’re needed. She says those are the types of things that are relied upon to maintain communicating within companies.

Upcoming Schedule

The ISF Virtual Congress on Tuesday also included a panel discussion about “Addressing emerging plant disease to achieve resilient food systems.” Panelists included Nico Horn, Director-General, EPPO; Frank Claessens, Vice President of Operations, BASF Vegetable Seeds; Jean Ristaino, Professor of Entomology and Plant Pathology, North Carolina State University; and Michael Leader, Seed Regulatory Lead-Asia, Bayer.

Seed Today is a media partner for the event with Editor Chris Lusvardi interviewing ISF Regulatory Affairs Manager Szabolcs Ruthner. The discussion, which will be about gene editing regulation and a global policy update, can be seen from 12-12:30 p.m. CEST (5-5:30 a.m. CT) Wednesday, July 7.

The Virtual Congress concludes with later sessions Wednesday including a discussion about the future of the seed business and our contribution to resilience.

More information can be found at congress.worldseed.org. Watch all the presentations on Channel World Seed.

Written by Chris Lusvardi, Seed Today editor

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