Biopesticides — the hidden driver of a sustainable food system?
Over the last 3 years, biopesticides have emerged as a strong alternative to conventional pesticides, which are often environmentally-destructive and toxic. This article explores the potential of biopesticides, and what must be overcome to make its use commonplace in agriculture.
Over the past few decades, synthetic pesticides have undoubtedly contributed to improved agricultural production in yield and quality. Nevertheless, the proliferation of synthetic chemicals poses dangerous health risks to humans, other living organisms, and the environment.
Conventional pesticides are designed to be toxic to pests, and they can also be harmful to people. Studies have linked exposure to synthetic pesticides with various health problems, including cancer, reproductive issues, and neurological problems.
Conventional pesticides are also often toxic and long-lived environmental pollutants. They can contaminate our water and land resources, leading to potentially irreversible effects on wildlife and our physical environment.
And to top it off, many pests have evolved resistances to synthetic pesticide compounds, making them more challenging to control.
First, let’s talk about the pest problem.
Every year, it is estimated that 20–40% of lost crop production is due to insect assaults worldwide, costing the global economy $220 billion. This issue is only going to get worse with climate change. As global temperatures continue to rise, the metabolic rate of insects will increase, driving them to consume more food and inflict more damage to crop outputs. It is estimated that agricultural losses to insect pests are expected to increase between 10–25% worldwide for each degree of average global warming of the earth’s surface.
Worldwide, more than 600 species of pests have developed some level of pesticide resistance.
Biopesticides — a viable solution?
Biopesticides are by no means a novel solution. In the late 1800s, fungal spores were used to control insect pests. In fact, using spores of the white-muscadine fungus to protect silkworms from disease was documented as early as 1835. Since then, biopesticide use has continued uninterrupted through modern agricultural history, but to date, it has been a small market compared to conventional crop protection. As stringent regulatory restrictions are placed on synthetic pesticides, biopesticides have emerged as a strong alternative, increasing by almost 10% every year globally.
Biopesticides are a subclass of pesticides derived from naturally occurring organisms or compounds that suppress the growth and proliferation of pests’ populations by diverse mechanisms of action. A significant attribute differentiating biopesticides from synthetic pesticides is the mode of action. While most, if not all, synthetic insecticides are neurotoxic to pests, many biopesticides have other modes of action, including mating disruption, anti-feeding, suffocation, and desiccation.
Still, despite intensified interest in biopesticides, they remain a relatively unexplored part of the market, with the top-performing categories (microbial pesticides, biochemical pesticides, and plant-incorporated protectants) commanding just a 5% share of the global pesticide market.
There are several significant limitations confronting the full adoption of biopesticides. While it is well-established as a solution, the biopesticide industry is still in its infancy and boggled with characteristic issues of such markets. These include an inability to meet market demands, the high cost of refined commercial products, and a lack of standardization in preparations and guidelines.
As a field, it’s also technologically nascent, with most forms relying on crude extracts of pesticidal plants can be relied on, especially for local farmers and developing countries. This brings about other difficulties, including dose determination of active ingredients, susceptibility to several environmental factors, ephemeral stability, and slow action.
Still, the advantages of switching to biopesticides are superior on multiple dimensions.
Since biopesticides exert their inhibitory effects in a myriad of ways, it is significantly less likely that pests will develop resistance to it.
Biopesticides are substantially less polluting than conventional pesticides. Biopesticides are often effective in small quantities and decompose quickly, resulting in lower exposures and largely avoiding pollution problems caused by traditional pesticides.
Biopesticides are usually inherently less toxic and reduce the risk to human health.
By affecting only the target pest (and closely related organisms), biopesticides minimize harm to wildlife and the physical environment compared to broad-spectrum, conventional pesticides.
Building a sustainable food future
By 2050, we will need to feed 9 billion people without overwhelming the planet. Agriculture is among the most significant contributors to many planetary issues, including global warming, chemical pollution, bioaccumulation, and biodiversity loss. A recent WWF report found that 3.2 billion tonnes — or 40% — of food produced around the world is lost during farming, of which pests play a huge responsibility.
Full adoption of biopesticides and continuous innovation in the area will be imperative to meeting the food challenge of the 21st century. Overcoming the barriers standing in the way of biopesticide adoption and commercialization requires production efficiency, formulation, and packaging.
On a technical level, biopesticides should focus on formulation efficacy, minimizing genetic material delivery into plants, monitoring the detection of pesticides and pathogens, and improving the stability and encapsulation of biopesticides.
Fortunately, with low costs for production and quick development of the market process (less than $10 million and four years for development and regulatory approval vs. chemical/synthetic, which requires $250 million and nine years for development and regulatory approval), the biopesticide start-up space is rapidly growing.
As the biopesticide space evolves into a competitive arena for innovation, we should start to see even greater improvements in the rates of uptake and for the market to equalize with synthetics. In time, biopesticide application can usher in a balance between economic productivity and environmental protection that will be pivotal to sustainable agriculture.