The Brazilian agrochemical market has been increasing its
concentration on large international companies, to a point that it would
transform into something worse than an “oligopoly”. This is the
assessment of the executive-director of the Brazilian Association of
Generic Pesticides, agronomist Tulio Teixeira de Oliveira.
“When
the market is dominated by few competitors, we denominate the market
phenomenon as an oligopoly. And this oligopoly stays stronger,
restricting further the space for competitors. So, that is just what is
happening in the Brazilian agrochemical market, one of the largest in
the world,” he said.
From 2015 to 2017, this
industry sector kept around US$9 billion each year in Brazil, which
indicates that Brazil alone represents 15% of the global market for
these products. “In these three years, the top nine companies had 70% of
sales for Brazilian agriculture, which is already big and has
possibilities to grow significantly,” said Oliveira.
According
to the director, next year, the concentration will be even bigger
because the companies that own the largest slice of the market will be
reduced from nine to only five. “There was the fusion between Dow and
DuPont, and now Bayer purchased Monsanto. Syngenta and Adama, even
though they are separate, represent only one: ChemChina. A little while
ago, FMC had captured ChemChina, and more recently, acquired the fair
share defined by the government in the Dow-DuPont procedure. Therefore,
the companies that have 70% of the Brazilian market of phytosanitary
products are Bayer, Syngenta/Adama, Corteva (Dow/DuPont), BASF and FMC,”
he added.
According to him, the term “owners” is
not a language error or exaggeration, but because the “domination is
overwhelming, the spaces for other companies should be called cracks”.
“Capitalism
presents itself as a system of freedom, opposed to socialism, defined
as autocratic. However, in practice, it is the freedom of those who can
do more, those who have bank investments to lend benefits to customers,
those who can transact agricultural products with distributors of one
region, those who organize more international travels with technical
inter-exchange for their main customers, and those who have a legion of
salespersons and field technicians available for farmers, all within the
legality. I’m only drawing the reality of our time: an unequal society
and without perspective of change towards a more humane organization,”
concluded Oliveira.