[162 Pages Report] MarketsandMarkets forecasts the biological seed treatment market in agriculture to grow from USD 667.8 million in 2016 to USD 1,251.4 million by 2022, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 11.10% during the forecast period. The market is influenced by the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices, along with strong investments being made by major market players in the research and development of these products. The objective of the report is to define, describe, and forecast the biological seed treatment market size based on type, crop type, function, and region.

Microbials segment is projected to be the fastest-growing from 2017 to 2022

Microbial seed treatment includes bacterial and fungal seed treatment. Seeds treatment provides an efficient mechanism for the placement of microbial inoculum in the soil environment, where they are appropriately positioned to colonize the seedling & roots and protect them against soil-borne diseases and pests. Thus, the microbials segment is projected to grow at the highest rate during the forecast period.

Corn segment led the market with the largest share in 2016

The demand for biological seed treatment in corn has been witnessing substantial growth in the European and American regions, due to the significant requirement of corn as animal protein and ethanol in the feed and automobile industries, respectively. Thus, the corn segment accounted for the major share in the biological seed treatment market.

North America led the market with the largest share in 2016

North America was the largest biological seed treatment market in 2016. The streamlined guidelines, procedures, and effective feedback adopted by North American agrochemical regulatory agencies have been supportive of the product registration process as compared to Europe. North America was followed by the European market in 2016 which has also witnessed a strong adoption trend of these products.

This report includes a study of the development strategies, along with the product portfolios of leading companies. It also includes the profiles of leading suppliers such as BASF (Germany), Bayer (Germany), Syngenta (Switzerland), Monsanto (US), and DuPont (US). Some emerging players in the biological seed treatment market include Valent BioSciences (US), Verdesian Life Sciences (US), Plant Health Care (US), Precision Laboratories (US), Koppert (Netherlands), Italpollina (Italy), and Incotec (Netherlands).

Market dynamics

Drivers: Serves as an insurance to seed investments

The commercial seed industry has been gaining better acceptance among crop growers, as the demand has been shifted toward commercialized seeds from open-hybrid and farm-saved seed varieties in many countries across the globe. Biological seed treatments have gained significant accomplishments in product developments with respect to biological coating and achieving crop efficiency at early seedling stage. Further minor innovations and improvements in product shelf-life can help in its evolution into becoming a more reliable product.

Today, these biological seed treatment products not only help in protecting the seeds, but also help in acting as seed enhancers, whereby, improving crop yields. The basic function of the initial biological seed treatment was majorly to control certain soil pathogens that affects seed performance. However, this has evolved greatly over the years and become much more complex in nature. Changes in different formulations and active ingredients have now aided these seed treatments to have a broad spectrum of protection from insects, diseases, and nematodes, with different combinations of insecticides, fungicides, and inoculants. Even though there have been field trials by key manufacturers such as BASF utilizing seed-applied agricultural inoculants to analyze the crop yields, the results are not much higher as expected due to the need to study further about the enhancing the interaction between the seed and the inoculant during sowing stage.

This has highly assisted in the reduction of biotic and abiotic stresses on the crop. Protection of the crop from abiotic stress could result in an improved seed vitality, increased stress tolerance, and aid in higher nutrient uptake. This will in turn enhance plant emergence, foliar growth, and nutrient utilization efficiency, while providing the crop with essential protection. These factors highly propel the assurance of a good crop yield, and act as an insurance to the investments made by the farmers on different seeds. Therefore, this remains as one of the most potent drivers for the commercialized seed industry in the coming decades.

The adoption of biological seed treatment products in emerging markets of India, China, Brazil, and Argentina has been expected to witness significant market growth based on the product launches of important players such as Bayer, BASF, and DuPont Pioneer. Over the last decade, there has been an increased demand for food and feed in emerging countries. As a result, there has been an increase in the demand to improve crop yield and utilize highly effective seed treatments in countries such as Brazil, which being an early adopter of these products, has led to some manufacturers to launch new biological seed treatment products in the region. For instance, Syngenta�s launch of EPIVIO brand of seed-applied biostimulant products in Brazil in 2016 for soybean, which was followed by their market outreach to corn growers in China.

Restraint: Limited product availability and adoption of biological seed treatments

There remains a very low level of awareness about biological seed treatments among farmers across the globe. Despite the usage of these biological seed treatments resulting in better-quality yields, while causing lesser harm to the soil, their adoption rate remains very low due to limited market reach and product awareness. In many developing countries, farmers remain highly accustomed to the usage of chemical products and chemical seed treatments, which make them even more wary to the usage of biological seed treatments.

Additionally, the availability of such biological seed treatment products still remains very limited in the market, due to different regulations being prevalent in different countries. Product and formulation registrations, in addition to the usage of new active ingredients, makes it difficult for companies to make their products available globally at the same time. This tends to further weaken the knowledge and awareness about the product, making the technology all the more difficult to gain pace. There remains an established market for chemical seed treatment products, on which farmers heavily rely, making the market for biological seed treatment products a very niche and steadily growing one.

Opportunity: Bio encapsulation technologies for improved environmental persistence

Research and developments in the field of agricultural practices have been moving toward the production of inoculants, which could eventually lead to the advent of improved and advanced formulations to ease application processes and improve the viability of products. Conventional forms of formulations, solid or liquid, lead to several problems related to the low viability of microorganisms during the storage and application process. However, this problem can be addressed by the immobilization of microorganisms. This immobilization highly improves the shelf-life and efficacy of the formulation, keeping it viable for a longer duration. Bioencapsulation technologies could also result in a controlled microbial release, thereby improving application efficacy. Such technologies have the ability of greatly improving the persistence of biological seed treatments in the soil environment and thereby, leading to a thriving market for the product.

Challenges: Limited shelf life

Biological seed treatments aimed at seed protection provide targeted control of certain pests and fungal diseases during the early seedling stage. Very low amount can also affect the efficacy of these seed treatments when the pest pressure remains very high during the important stages of crop establishment.

The effective period of biologicals in the seed treatment is also very short-lived which makes the product unattractive for the crop growers. Most of the products available in the market cease to remain viable after a certain period of time which completely incapacitates the product, and this can also make the products ineffective even without reaching the crop fields.

As the short life-span of these biologicals can hinder the market growth, some players in the biological and polymer coating sectors have been developing encapsulation technologies that can preserve the microbials for a longer period. In order to counter these measures, customized services from seed suppliers at farm fields during the pre-sowing period can serve as temporary solution for the crop growers.

In the case of botanicals with higher molecular weight, the active ingredient cannot be uniformly coated around vegetable seeds which have smaller physical size and shape. Pelleting techniques can help overcome this situation in increasing the surface area of the seed to apply biofungicides and bioinsecticides

Scope of the Report

Report Metric Details Market size estimation 2015�2022 Base year considered 2016 Forecast period considered 2017�2022 Units considered Value (USD) Segments covered Type, Crop type, Function, and Region Regions covered North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, South America, and RoW Companies studied BASF (Germany), Bayer (Germany), Syngenta (Switzerland), Monsanto (US), and DuPont (US)., Valent BioSciences (US), Verdesian Life Sciences (US), Plant Health Care (US), Precision Laboratories (US), Koppert (Netherlands), Italpollina (Italy), and Incotec (Netherlands).

This research report categorizes the biological seed treatment market based on type, function, crop, and region.

Based on Type, the market has been segmented as follows:

Microbials Bacterial Fungi

Botanicals & others (biofermentation products and natural polymers & derivatives)

Based on Function, the market has been segmented as follows:

Seed protection Biofungicides Bioinsecticides Others (bioherbicides and bionematicides)



Seed enhancement Biofertilizers Biostimulants



Based on Crop, the market has been segmented as follows:

Corn

Wheat

Soybean

Cotton

Sunflower

Vegetable crops

Other crops (plantation, fruit, pulse, other cereal & oilseed, turf, forage, and ornamental crops)

Based on Region, the market has been segmented as follows:

North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

South America

RoW (the Middle East and Africa)

Key Market Players

Biological Seed Treatment Manufacturers:

Bayer

Syngenta

BASF

Monsanto Bioag

Dupont

Italpollina

Koppert

Incotec

Plant Health Care

Precision Laboratories

Verdesian Life Sciences

Valent Biosciences

Recent Developments

In March 2019, Corteva Agriscience (formerly known as DowDuPont) inaugurated new center of technologies applied to seed in Aussonne (France), this would help company to enhance yield of farmers in this region.

In September 2018, Plant Health Care launched Harpin αβ product for seed treatment applications to corn, this would help the company to tap huge market for corn spread over more than 90 million acres.

In July 2017, Syngenta and Valagro (Italy) signed an agreement under the terms of which Valagro would supply biostimulants to Syngenta for seed treatments. With the combined expertise of the two companies, Syngenta was expected to launch EPIVIO Energy by 2018.

In July 2017, Bayer launched two inoculant technologies for seed treatment in Brazil. Bayer in partnership with Novozymes, developed the inoculant TSI, for industrial seed treatment. For the on-farm seed treatment, inoculant Biagro 10 and Biagro L�quido NG were launched by the company.

Critical questions the report answers:

Where will all these developments take the industry in the long term?

What are the upcoming trends for the biological seed treatment market?

Which segment provides the most opportunity for growth?

Who are the leading vendors operating in this market?

What are the opportunities for new market entrants?

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