By Jackie Pucci, Senior Editor, CropLife Media Group and AgriBusiness Global
“The biggest opportunity for biologicals has been the management of chemical residues meeting consumer demands. ...They have really opened the door." — Mark Trimmer, Dunham Trimmer
“The biggest opportunity for biologicals has been the management of chemical residues meeting consumer demands. ... They have really opened the door,” says Mark Trimmer, managing partner at biologicals research firm DunhamTrimmer.
De facto mandates driven by grocery store and food buyers can be even more restrictive — particularly at European chains and U.S. operators like Whole Foods and even Wal-Mart — than residue tolerances set by the federal government, he points out. Trimmer recalls a visit to the UK, where a grocery store had a billboard in the produce section boasting, “We banned over 60 pesticides!”
He also describes a case from his home state of Florida, from where a shipment of fresh grapefruit was rejected outright by Japan after being caught for exceedance of maximum residue limits (MRLs). “It was a very expensive experience for that particular grower, but it also has an impact on the whole industry. Japan then increases testing for that crop coming from the U.S. whenever they have an exceedance.”
Many growers are currently dealing with finding alternative products related to the European Commission’s 2021 decision to withdraw approval of the fungicide mancozeb as an active substance at the EU level. The grace period for EU farmers to use up stocks of products with mancozeb ended Jan. 4, 2022.
Trimmer works with a client involved in California walnut production, where mancozeb has commonly been tankmixed with copper to treat walnut blight, a devastating bacterial disease. “This is a case where it’s not the EPA, but export markets that have established restrictions of a common product. Suddenly, you find you have lost an important tool for your production.” Because using copper alone is not viable due to resistance, growers are currently left with one option, which is the antibiotic kasugamycin, sold as Kasumin by UPL.
Biologicals, the vast majority of which are exempt from MRL evaluations, have the clear advantage in an environment of tightening regulatory controls and strong consumer demand for fewer pesticides. “They fit very well, especially for late-season applications, and for those crops where you have multiple harvests like berry crops, where there is a very short re-entry period and no restriction on harvesting,” he adds. “Especially for fruit and vegetable crops, [these regulations] have helped them to be a strong driver for the growth of the biocontrols market.
Trimmer notes that market growth in the U.S. “is in the neighborhood of 2 to 3x for biologicals than for traditional crop protection, and Brazil is at least twice that.”
According to the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply, 95 new pesticides for biological and organic control were registered in 2020 alone creating revenue of $307 million. Europe and North America lead the biologicals market, but Brazil is moving in the right direction to be a leader as it demonstrates lower production costs and as adoption of sustainable farming practices increases in the region, writes Lux Research’s Deepesh Bista.
“The recent success of biologicals in Brazil is due to its well-established Extension system and fewer regulatory barriers to foreign companies. The need for alternative inputs in agriculture will expand the use of biologicals, and Brazil presents clients a model for scaled growth opportunities,” Bista explains.
The year 2021 was an eye-opener for tropical fruit exporters to Europe, says Javier Fernández, legal and regulatory affairs director with CropLife Latin America.
The EU’s MRL decline was finally felt in the field, as registered pesticides in producing countries suddenly were suddenly pulled for use in export crops.
Finding new pest control solutions not only requires time, but official support in the form of legal certainty. Efficiency is a must.
“I recently spoke to the ag export product value chain, and they told me they are sprinting to find alternative solutions to the EU MRL decline issue. But the road ahead is not easy." — Javier Fernandez, CropLife Latin America
Yet in countries like Fernández’s native Costa Rica, lengthy registration backlogs add stress on farmers who find themselves emptyhanded of registered options. Impacted crops are mostly bananas, coffee, and pineapple, of which the country ranks among the world’s top exporters, which is surprising given its relatively small territory (51,000 km2).
Rotating to other crops is difficult given the large extensions of land used to farm and removing existing plantations to free up the land. Pineapples may be more likely to have a chance, he says.
“I recently spoke to the ag export product value chain, and they told me they are sprinting to find alternative solutions to the EU MRL decline issue. But the road ahead is not easy,” Fernández says.
“Pest pressure is a constant as they try new crop protection products — some from the biocontrol families.” Thyme-based oils began demonstrating encouraging results in the field, but its prolonged success is not guaranteed, he says. “Nevertheless, the grower thought he had a viable solution, but the EU considers thyme an additive to the fruit, so yet another set of compliance rules must be met.”
Finding other markets requires years in development, locking deals with the value chain all the way to the consumer’s table, he explains, noting that the global logistics crisis adds uncertainty on how to supply new markets. “Compliance with Asian markets is no easy task either. Distance to the Middle East is not an option for fresh fruit as cost and time of freight currently make those markets unviable.”
Colombia has created a public-private working group that is eager to tackle the issue on several fronts, including mapping out key active-crop combinations to scope out alternatives. The team still seeks bilateral or diplomatic solutions to the MRL loss for critical crops, Fernández says.
Guatemala is also attuned to the EU’s MRL decline issue and has geared its official and diplomatic machines to support its farmers accordingly.
“One can only hope for (the EU) that their supply does not go dry, and that would not be based on farming conditions, but on its own restrictive policies,” he says.
Dayna Collett, Southeast field development manager with Vestaron, explains that its peptide-based product, Spear-Lep, breaks down naturally and boasts a four-hour re-entry interval. It is currently only sold in the U.S. but is awaiting approval in Mexico, and Europe and Brazil are also in its go-to-market plan. Vestaron is also field trialing a formulation for row crops.
“More growers are open to green products, as they have seen failures of synthetic chemistries, and know they don’t have tools left." — Dayna Collett, Vestaron
“More growers are open to green products, as they have seen failures of synthetic chemistries, and know they don’t have tools left,” she says. “Being able to go into the field (to apply) right up to harvest is super important ... In high-value crops, they want to get them out and shipped. It does have a value.”
Collett adds, “In the foreseeable future, it could be that farmer has a seasonal rotation of peptides. That’s a revolutionary thought. That’s the goal. In some cases, resistance is coming and we’re ahead of that. It’s a unique place to be, because for growers oftentimes, they meet resistance and have no solution. We are trying to provide solutions ahead of that resistance, and not waiting all those years for something new to come along.”
