Biological products lacking in the Brazilian market

Between 2011 and 2014, the world market of biological products had an average growth of 15.3% per year, according to a survey authored by CPL Business Consultants. In Brazil, the expectation is to maintain the upward curve with space for an even higher growth of up to 20%. But if for one side there is demand for this technology in the field, there is a lack of products to meet this large-scale market. “If everybody chooses to use biological control today, we will not have the possibility to meet the demand,” said José Roberto Postali Parra, a researcher at the Superior School of Agriculture Luiz de Queiroz of the University of São Paulo (Esalq/USP).

In Brazil, 50 companies respond to production agents that act to control plagues, either by macro-organisms (insects, mites) or micro-organisms (viruses, fungi, bacteria), and also products that combat diseases. Overall, it represents 1.7% of biological formulators in the world, according to ABC Bio. The United States has 50.4% of share in this market in the world and 41% of the patents.

"In order to increase our production, new companies will have to appear. Anyways, the path is that multinationals – which detain the resources and conditions to do quality control - should produce the micros – and the macros stay with the small companies,” affirmed Parra, citing the excess of labor-force as an obstacle that yet reduces the margins of small industries. “In the countryside of São Paulo, there are cases of employers with 400 employees, this is a lot,” said.

Even so, the synthesis of a biological product is cheaper than a chemical, costing US$ 2 million to US$ 10 million, while an agrochemical can cost up to US$ 250 million. At the Ministry of Agriculture in Brazil, since the beginning of the year 118 biological products, being only 10 of them to control diseases. In this specific field, researcher Wagner Bettiol of Embrapa Natural Environment, believes that there is lack of investment on research and more assertive breakthroughs. “The studies are not made under agroecological conditions. A lot of things in vitro are done and, at the laboratory, the effect is spectacular, but does not work in the field,” said Bettiol.

To win the confidence of farmers is necessary to not only offer a good product and teach adequate management techniques, but to overcome a barrier that comes from behind. In the last 12 years, the use of agrochemicals increased 162% in Brazil, while the global average stayed at 90%. “There is the culture that the farmer prefers the agrochemical,” affirms Parra.

And Bettiol went further: “It is not only a culture of farmers, but from agronomists, researchers and professors. Everybody knows well the chemical control, even though just 25% of post-graduates on Entomology in Brazil follow in the field of biological control,” said. In Parra's opinion, the acceptance just increases, mostly, after the appearance of caterpillar Helicoverpa armigera in Brazil in 2013 – plague that had its control based on the use of Bt technology.

On the face of this enemy, GMO has shown to be efficient, but it is not a solution for everything. “We need to create mechanisms to do samples of the plague populations in big properties and foster the transference of technology between regions with very different climates,” said Parra, because it also depends on the success of biological control. Other challenges at the horizon are the evolution of application techniques in order to have biological compatibility with other products and the creation of a specific legislation for the sector.

So far, what is known is that the market potential is huge. Either to attend the import requirements, which return goods with residue, or the pressure of the society for a more sustainable agriculture or due to the plague resistance, the biologicals are in place to be one of the pillars of integrated management.