One thing the graph below shows is the relevance of marketing years and that seed trade tends to occur over the winter. Another observation is the striking downward trend in EU imports from non-EU countries over the past several marketing years. As the primary external trading partner, the U.S. has been the hardest hit. However, as of December, seed imports from Hungary and Australia, the second and third largest external seed suppliers to the EU, were down by a larger percentage in CY 2001 (24% and 36%, respectively, compared to 17% for the U.S. Note that import data often lags export data and since import data usually reflects C.I.F. values whereas U.S. exports are recorded Free-Along-Side, this information is not necessarily in conflict with U.S. Census data showing U.S. planting seed exports to the EU up 2% in CY 2001). EU data is available through December 2001, and it appears that external EU seed imports this marketing year could be the weakest in the past ten years. On the other hand, U.S. exports to the EU did better in the second half of the marketing year than in the first, perhaps due to the sudden recovery of the euro vis-à-vis the dollar.

It appears that EU external exports remained stable in MY 2001/02. U.S. seed imports from the EU actually increased by over 10%. Increased exports to the U.S., Algeria and Poland may have been offset by decreases in exports to Japan, Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia and Turkey.