Biological products grow 37% to BRL 1.7 billion in Brazil

By Leonardo Gottems, reporter for AgroPages

The bio-inputs market grew to BRL1.7 billion (US$311,429 million) in the 2020-2021 season, the recently released BIP (Business Intelligence Panel) by Spark Smarter Decisions pointed out.

This means that biological pesticides and bio inoculants registered an impressive growth of 37% compared to the 2019-20 cycle when they totalled BRL 1.235 billion.

According to the survey by Spark, these two segments together accounted for 3% of total sales in the plant defense sector. The entire market reached a turnover of BRL53.83 billion, an increase of 16% as against BRL46.559 billion last season.

Among biopesticides, bio nematicides led the sales, with a share of 43% (BRL724 million). In second place were bioinsecticides, which accounted for 25% or BRL417 million, followed by biofungicides: 9% or BRL159 million. Such products, specific for the control of diseases and pests, reached BRL1.3 billion in transactions, an amount 37% higher than that calculated in the 2019-2020 harvest (BRL948 million).

On the other hand, Bioinoculants moved BRL393 million, a figure equivalent to 23% of the biological market. Bioinoculants also had a 37% increase in sales, compared to the 2019-2020 harvest (BRL287 million).

According to the project coordinator at Spark, Lucas Alves, inoculants are not considered agricultural defensives because they assist in the development of plants. “The inoculants segment gains more space, with each harvest, in the management of producers,” he emphasized.

With regard to an application by crop and cultivated area, Spark highlighted that biopesticides treated 21% of soybean crops, or about 7.9 million hectares, in addition to 50% of sugarcane (4.5 million hectares); 67% of cotton (857 thousand hectares) and 13% of off-season corn (1.89 million hectares).

In the other crops evaluated, with less economic weight, bio-defensives reached 19% of the bean areas (145,000 hectares), 5% of coffee (102,000 hectares), 4% of summer corn (144,000 hectares), 22% tomato (7,700 hectares) and 7% for potatoes (6,160 hectares).

Also, in relation to the area treated by bio-defensives in the 2020-2021 cycle, Spark highlights that the adhesion of producers jumped from 5% to 13% for off-season corn and from 28% to 67% for cotton. “The market for biological solutions grew 40% a year between the 2018-2019 and 2020-2021 harvests. This data supports the consolidation of products as important management tools in the main agricultural crops. BIP Biologics allows us to foresee the enormous potential for the growth of these technologies, from now to the next few years,” Lucas Alves stated.

For the managing partner of Spark, André Dias, the integration of bio-inputs to producer management is solidified in the set of studies of BIP Biologic 2020-21. “We noticed a growing offer of new technologies, crop after crop”, he reveals. “The need for the producer to use agricultural pesticides with different modes of action, chemical and biological, to contain the resistance of fungi and pests to certain active ingredients, also favors the increase in the participation of bio-inputs,” Dias said in conclusion.