Closing the Gap: Will We See Innovative Bioherbicides Enter the Market Soon?
Editor’s note: Each year, 2BMonthly’s State of the Industry feature includes a Q&A with executives from leading biocontrol and biostimulants companies worldwide. The 2023 feature touched on a wide range of prevailing topics including the biologicals M&A climate, critical success factors for scaling biologicals companies, and the ongoing challenges facing biocontrol registrations in the EU. In the excerpt below, experts offered their predictions on effective new bioherbicides entering the market in the coming years.
Q: Bioherbicides are the Holy Grail of biopesticides, but we have yet to see a major success in this segment. Do you think we will begin to see more effective new bioherbicides enter the market in the next few years?
Daniel Zingg, CEO, Andermatt Group: I am convinced that good solutions will be developed in the field of bioherbicides over the next few years. However, the development will be much more challenging than the development of other bio-product categories. The combination with precision farming may offer economical solutions.
Salman Mir, Chief Operating Officer, Valent BioSciences: Bioherbicides certainly represent a current gap in the tools available to growers. As growers see increasing resistance to known chemistries, along with more challenging weed pressure, a bioherbicide is an innovation that is clearly needed for the industry. Our teams are working diligently on solutions for this space, as are many others in the industry, and we hope to see innovative new bioherbicide introductions as soon as possible for the benefit of growers worldwide.
Enric Bonet, CEO, Manvert: Difficult in terms of regulation in Europe, especially in countries where glyphosate is still under use and authorized. It is not possible to beat under normal conditions a good herbicide with a good price. New solutions are difficult to develop and especially difficult to register in the EU, and in some cases, both the cost and dosage to be applied are far ahead in cost when compared with glyphosate.
Mark Trimmer, President & Founding Partner, DunhamTrimmer: Bioherbicides are a tough technical challenge. The optimal product would be selective to the crop, provide residual weed control, and control a broad spectrum of weeds at a cost competitive to current chemical herbicides. But I’m optimistic that we are going to see some of the first successful bioherbicides enter the market in the next five years. Focusing on weed species that have developed resistance to a range of chemical modes of action could be an effective way to enter the market. There are several companies with interesting technologies in their pipeline that may finally open this market for biologicals.
Loading ...Jim Thompson, Director of Business Development, Portfolio Management Biologicals and Non-Crop, AMVAC: We do believe there will be effective new bioherbicides to enter the market, in an effort to replace some of the current ag chemical products that are seeing regulatory pressure. AMVAC is investing heavily in this area, as we believe there will be a major market shift over to bioherbicides in the next 5-10 years.
It may be worth mentioning that most of the bioherbicides to date are nonselective products that kill vegetation via contact. Bioherbicides that are more selective and can be applied over the top of crops are likely still a ways off.
Amy O’Shea, President & CEO, Certis Biologicals: Substantial investments are currently happening in bioherbicides, and the industry faces a considerable challenge in achieving a breakthrough in terms of performance, consistency, and affordability for growers. It’s important to recognize that a bioherbicide may not look like a synthetic herbicide, and a shift in our mindset toward weed control may be necessary. To make this a global reality, there must be a transformative shift in the industry mindset, and regulatory frameworks for biologicals must swiftly adapt to the changing market landscape. It remains challenging to find a natural technology that counteracts nature itself, but I believe we are getting closer to unconventional solutions.
Vladyslav Bolokhovskyi, CEO, BTU-Center: To be honest, we do not think it is possible in the short term, but we have been working on it.
View more expert insight on the state of the biologicals industry here.
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