With biopesticide market proliferating how are China’s green solutions going global?

Biopesticide market has been increasing, with new biopesticide product registrations accounting for 62.9%.

Biopesticide has come at the forefront of agrotechnology competition in China. In the years ahead, with the continuous promotion and implementation of the high-quality green development of agriculture, the Chinese biopesticide market is expected to witness a broad prospect.

The Chinese biopesticide market has shown rapid growth and has been remarkable in many aspects. Biopesticide products have increased not only in the number of registrations year by year but have become more diversified in categories, covering various product categories, including pesticides, fungicides and plant growth regulators.

Data released by ICAMA reveal 53 novel pesticidal active ingredient registrations in China from 2019 to 2022, including 38 biopesticides (12 biochemical pesticides, 24 microbial pesticides and two botanical pesticides) accounting for 71.7% of the total number of novel pesticidal active ingredients. Speaking of products, the registrations cover 97 novel pesticide products, including 61 biopesticide products (14 biochemical pesticides, 43 microbial pesticides and 4 botanical pesticides), accounting for 62.9%.

In terms of technical development, in recent years, the biopesticide research direction in China has diversified, with the emergence of several technologies and products of great application potential.      

For example, RNAi has become a new focus of research on biopesticides. Meanwhile, technologies for immunity inducers, soil continuous cropping obstacle remediation, natural enemy insect and efficient microbial strain modification, insect pheromone, sexual attractant, microbial and botanical metabolites-oriented biomimetic synthesis have been developing rapidly, which bring new vigor into the innovation and application of biopesticides.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, up to 2021, there were more than 260 biopesticide manufacturers in China, with an annual production output of about 140,000 tons and an annual output value of about RMB3 billion yuan. Regarding application, the annual use of biopesticides in China has arrived roughly at 80,000 tons, covering an application area of more than 400 million mu (1 mu=1/15 Ha), while considerable products are sold to the international market.

China’s green innovative agricultural solutions: Innovation practices of Qilu Pharmaceutical and New Sun Crop Science

R&D and manufacturing enterprises are the key players in the biopesticide industry, playing a key role in technology and product research, production and planting as well as product application across the upstream, midstream and downstream of the biopesticide industry chain. 

Currently, the Chinese biopesticide industry has nurtured several outstanding enterprises like Qilu Pharmaceutical, which owns a complete industry chain of bio-sourced crop protection products and is highly reputed in the domestic and international markets. 

Agrobiotechnology enterprises such as Chengdu New Sun Crop Science have matured and possess various core technologies and mature products.

Qilu Pharmaceutical is the world’s largest supplier of bio-sourced crop protection products, which not only possesses the world’s largest number of crude materials such as avermectin, spinosad and emamectin benzoate but has also achieved a coordinated upstream and downstream development of formulations, enabling the company to lead the biopesticide industry.

In 2017, Qilu Pharmaceutical succeeded in developing and commercializing the supply of its spinosad, having become China’s leading enterprise in technical innovation, production and supply of spinosad, with a production capacity of more than 1,500 tons. 

Qilu Pharmaceutical’s avermectin is produced with a high α value, which is at least 10% more effective than similar products at the same dosage while being rich in content, with a production capacity of 5,000 tons. In the meantime, Qilu Pharmaceutical is China’s largest emamectin benzoate manufacturer. Its emamectin benzoate TC has high purity and α value advantages. 

The product emamectin benzoate 5% ME, one of its key products, is made via nano-formulation technology, being registered for the prevention and control of rice leaf roller, with superior performance. 

At the beginning of 2022, Qilu Pharmaceutical conducted a strategic merger of Huaxing Chemical, which improves the strategic layout of the three major business sectors of the company, covering technical materials and formulations to facilitate Huaxing Chemical to establish a complete industry chain of green pesticides. 

Qilu Pharmaceutical is making great strides in developing and applying bio-sourced crop protection products and actively making reserves of new biotechnologies to support further and continued innovation. 

For example, in the last two years, the application of RNA interference to crop pest control has gradually become popular. So far as the nucleic acid interferon, Qilu Crop Protection has made explorations in cooperation with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Bayer CropScience, having achieved fruitful results.

New Sun Crop Science is a ″specialized and novel″ and ″little giant″ high-tech enterprise certified by the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The company has been dedicated to agrobiotechnology research and development for more than 20 years, covering soil remediation, biological plant growth regulators, biostimulants, natural product-based pesticides, microbial pesticides, biosynthesis and gene editing. The company has established smart and automatic technical material and formulation manufacturing bases and industrialization platforms, having formed its integrated green control technology and product portfolio. 

Via the use of natural product co-extraction technology, microbial engineering technology, synthetic biology, gene editing and molecular breeding technology, New Sun Crop Science has in succession, developed the world’s first application-fit plant signaling molecular regulation technology - COR coronatine, natural product-based plant endogenous regulation technology - 14-hydroxynatural brassinosteroid and the novel biostimulant - SF pollen polysaccharide, which are world-leading biotechnologies, forming several biotechnologies and products capable of improving abiotic stress and enhancing crop’s resistance to low temperature, drought and high temperature. 

Moreover, the company has achievements in developing biological remediation technologies and products, such as the natural compound-based biopesticide series, bioherbicidal technologies, soil acidification control, salinization remediation, soil aggregate structural remediation and heavy metal pollution remediation. In addition, New Sun Crop Science has been active in applying cutting-edge means such as gene editing and synthetic biotechnology to support their research and development of biopesticides.

New Sun Crop Science has China’s most systematic product registrations, which cover biopesticide products, crops for application and targe of control, having been granted 40 biopesticide registrations while more than 35 registrations are currently in process, which covers more than 100 targets of control.

In this critical period of implementation of China’s 14th Five-Year Plan, Chinese agricultural development has ushered in a new stage of green transformation, where biopesticides, which are a diversified mechanism of action, environmental friendliness, low risk of resistance and high input-output ratio, are gradually becoming a key driver to promotion of the transformation and upgrading of the pesticide industry.

On July 18 and 19, 2024, the China Pesticide Exporting Workshop (CPEW), held by AgroPages, is scheduled to take place in Hangzhou, where Du Hui, Deputy General Manager of Qilu Pharmaceutical Crop Protection Division, Huang Zhengyi, Marketing Director of Anhui Huaxing Chemical Co., Ltd and Chen Tingzhuo, Director of Chengdu New Sun’s Biopesticide Creation Center, will make presentations on the unique value and potentials of China’s green and innovative agricultural solutions in promotion of the sustainable development of global agriculture, from the perspectives of the Chinese biopesticide industry development and their business practices.

Theme of presentation: The Development of Biochemical Pesticides: Discussion on Biosynthesis Pathways, Industrialization Process and Future Trends

Speaker: Huang Zhengyi, Marketing Director，Anhui Huaxing Chemical (China)

Theme of presentation: Development of Integrated Biological Solutions and the Application Scenarios in Overseas 

Speaker: Chen Tingzhuo, Director of Biopesticide Creation Center, Chengdu Newsun Crop Science (China)

See Agenda