AgroPages-Chile's Biopesticide grows 16% annually-Agricultural news

Biopesticides have gained an increasingly important space in Chile’s conventional agriculture.

"The biological products used to be applied only by the fact that they were green.Today we use them because they actually work, because if they do not work, it does not matter how many certifications they have", explains Eduardo Donoso, partner of the Chilean company Bioinsumos Nativa , a specialists in biocontrol.

"The expected world growth of biopesticides for the next 20 years is 16% annually. Almost double the growth of the chemicals. At the local level, meanwhile, expected growth rates are of the order of 18%", says Paulo Escobar, manager of Bioinsumos Nativa.

A few years ago when the biopesticide business landed in Chile, Bioinsumos Nativa had only between 12 and 15 competitors who were just very small companies. Now there are the same quantity of competitors but all are large enterprises. This market has already changed and the quality standards have also improved. Biocontrol is no longer an alternative technology. For example, Bayer CropScience is currently spending 30% of its budget on biological products R&D.