How and why Brazil became the largest producer and consumer of biocontrol products

There are three possible reasons for Brazil to emerge as the world’s largest producer and user of biocontrol agents, pointed out researchers Wagner Bettiol from Embrapa, and Flávio Medeiros from the Federal University of Lavras.

Wagner Bettiol from Embrapa, and Flávio Medeiros from the Federal University of Lavras

According to them, the factors are the cultivated area, the constant occupation of these cultivated areas, and the climatic conditions. Furthermore, they explained the country's long history of biocontrol under field conditions, which was another crucial aspect.

″The use of the fungus Metarhizium anisopliae for the control of leafhopper in sugarcane and weak strains of the citrus tristear virus for the control of this disease in the 1960s, and of Baculovirus for the control of soybean bollworm in the 1970s, are important examples,″ they recalled. In the same decade, controling the sugarcane borer through the use of the wasp Cotesia flavipes became a standard management strategy throughout the country, they said.

″The success of these research-driven biocontrol strategies spurred investments in studies of both pest and plant disease biocontrol in the following decades. However, they did not have the same success with the biocontrol of weeds,″ they pointed out.

The researchers pointed out that for many years, due to the lack of solid competition with chemical pesticides and large companies' disinterest, biological products were mainly produced by farmers or sold unregistered. ″However, this scenario changed in the early 2000s, when biological product companies were pressured to register their products under the pesticide legislation,″ they said.

In addition, they explained, a new method of registering biologicals was created at the beginning of this century: registering products for use in organic agriculture. ″By this method, the registered strains could be exploited, upon authorization, by several companies, facilitating the registration process, making it simpler, faster, and more economical. With the growth of the market for biological products and the problems observed in the use of pesticides, the legislation was changed to prioritize the registration of biological products,″ they noted.

Another important improvement in the legislation was the registration of biologicals by target and not by crop, as is the case with pesticides. This regulatory improvement has encouraged the registration and adoption of biologicals, they said.

According to them, considering the pace of growth in recent years, the area under biological control in Brazil must exceed 70 million hectares. The largest areas under biological control with bioproducts registered in 2022 were soy (20 million hectares), corn (9.8 million hectares), sugarcane (6.6 million hectares), coffee (0.4 million hectares), other crops (4.1 million hectares), point to data from Kynetec (ex-Spark).

The number of biological products registered in Brazil went from one, registered in 2005, to 482 registered until February 2023. According to Wagner Bettiol and Flávio Medeiros, the most extraordinary market expansion for biological control was for the management of nematodes, and biocontrol surpassed the market for chemical nematicides and is today the largest biocontrol market in Brazil, representing, in 2022, 44% of sales of bioagents.

″Although there has been a large increase in the number of registrations of products for biocontrol, called biopesticides or bioprotectors, this does not represent the reality of adoption by producers, as there has been an increase in the adoption of on-farm or homemade production, that is, companies that establish smaller scale industries on their farms to produce the biocontrol agents they need,″ they noted.

According to them, this industrial production has different levels, from artisanal (such as biofertilizer) to industrial production (similar to those with biological products as their primary business). Such initiatives resulted in the creation of several industries of biological products in the country.

Finally, the researchers pointed out four necessary and urgent actions for biological control to continue to grow in Brazil:

1. Develop bioherbicides;

2. Carry out control of Asian soybean and coffee leaf rust, as well as powdery mildew in various crops exclusively with biological control agents and, eventually, in combination with other ecological approaches, such as resistant cultivars and crop management practices;

3. Select new biocontrol agents adapted to the tropical climate, as well as adapted and capable of dealing with climate change;

4. Train those involved in the production chains in biological control.
   

(Editing by Leonardo Gottems, reporter for AgroPages)