Hawai'i's fast-growing seed crop industry forecasts spending $276 million over the next 10 years, up from $164 million in the past 10 years, suggesting the state's biggest farming sector expects continued expansion.

The forecast for capital expenditures was included in a new study commissioned by the Hawai'i Farm Bureau Federation and paid for by the Hawaii Crop Improvement Association, a trade group representing seed companies.

The report, which updates a similar study in 2006, was released to detail the economic contribution of seed crop companies statewide in the face of adverse economic pressures.

Authors of the study are Thomas Loudat, a local economist, and Prahlad Kasturi, an economics professor at Radford University in Virginia.

Much of the study is based on data collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service, which in September reported the value of Hawai'i's seed crop industry in the most recent 2007-08 season rose to a record $146 million from $103 million in the prior season.

The industry includes 10 farms on O'ahu, Kaua'i, Moloka'i and Maui cultivating primarily seed corn but also soybean, wheat, sunflower and other crop seeds on 6,010 acres.

Some 16,140 pounds of seeds were produced. The seeds grown in Hawai'i are exported to the Mainland for further testing and propagation, essentially as the parent stock of seeds that farmers will plant in two to three years.

Seed development companies, which have been active in Hawai'i since the 1960s, take advantage of the state's year-round growing season, rich soil and isolation from big commercial farms growing the same crops.

Not everyone is supportive of the industry because of its use of genetic engineering to modify plants and their seeds. The study said about half of the acreage under seed crop cultivation employs genetic engineering and half uses conventional breeding practices.

The risks and value of genetic engineering in the seed crop industry have been fiercely debated. But that hasn't held the industry back from becoming the state's top crop, surpassing pineapple in 2006.

The valuation of seed crops, however, isn't measured solely by sales because the product isn't sold like other crops. The seed industry's $146 million value includes $68 million in labor, the study said.

Hawai'i seed companies employ 1,863 people, including 1,065 full-time workers. The study also said the average annual industry wage last year was $39,824, compared with $30,960 for the state's agricultural sector and $41,630 for all jobs.

DuPont, one of the state's leading seed crop companies, in January installed a 1,500-panel photovoltaic system at its Pioneer Hi-Bred Waimea Research Center on Kaua'i.

The study said the industry generates $13.8 million in annual tax revenue. Counting expenditures that are directly and indirectly supported by the industry, the study said the industry's economic impact is at least $341 million, including $53 million in salaries outside the seed industry and $167 million in economic activity from sources such as equipment suppliers, utilities and contract research.