Biological Pesticides Expected to Triple by 2020
11 November 2013 
Dr. Steve Lisansky
The biological pesticide market has tripled in the past five years and is expected to more than double again by 2020, says Dr. Steve Lisansky, co-founder of CPL Scientific, an executive-search and business consultancy for companies working in specialty chemicals, biotechnology, animal health, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and others.
Lisansky expects global sales of about $2.8 billion in 2014, a 15% increase over this year’s projected sales and about 4% of the total crop protection market. CPL estimates the sector will continue to grow 15% per year until 2020, when biological pesticide sales are projected to reach $6.6 billion.
This positive growth trend represents a cooling-off period of the red-hot sector that enjoyed an average 26% annual growth during the past five years as adoption of the sector’s products became more widespread.
Major factors for the sector’s rapid rise are governmental and public bias against traditional chemicals, greater availability of biological products, greater confidence in performance and efficacy of products and greater participation from major companies.
“I’m very pleased to be able to say is that this industry is stronger than ever before,” Lisansky told CropWorld Global attendees in October. “The companies are stronger, and serious players in this industry are now large players.”
Lisansky, who began working in the biopesticides industry in 1977 when global sales were less than $60 million worldwide, says multinational acquisitions have helped the entire sector raise financing, re-invest in discovery and create a pipeline of diversified portfolios that are no longer dominated by Bt and neem oil.
Bayer’s $1-billion acquisition of Becker Underwood is the largest biological buyout to date and illustrates the importance of the sector to a balance crop protection portfolio. Other notable deals include Syngenta’s purchase of Pasteuria Biosciences, Bayer’s buys of AgraQuest and Prophyta, and Novozymes’ acquisitions of EMD/Merck Crop BioScience, Natural Industries and Turfal. Additionally, Monsanto purchased Agradis earlier this year, including its R&D facility, which gives the company more infrastructure to develop its BioDirect Technology platform.
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