IPM, Regulation Drive Biological Product Opportunities in Latin America
One of the most important challenges facing farmers today is to be able to select the best control alternatives for the different problems that arise during the production process in each of their production areas. The main challenge is to be able to choose the most suitable tool at the precise moment. That is why it is so important to take into account for this evaluation Integrated Pest Management which uses a wide variety of complementary methods, which can be physical, mechanical, chemical, biological, genetic, legal, and cultural.
One of the key tools used in the production process are chemical products, which used under the recommended standards and using adequate protection provide producers with very good efficiency and good control of the problems of pests, diseases and weeds in the field.
Due to globalization, today there is a very important requirement for agricultural producers to use tools that are modern, effective, and that respect the environment where they are applied and that apart from chemical products, biological products must be included in the new palette of elements for the control.
Biological products have traveled a very interesting path to integrate into production processes and it is worrying to see how the number of new phytosanitary products has been declining since the 1990s from approximately 15 assets per year to more or less 3 to 5 assets in 2019 and 2020, while BioControl Agents (BCA) or biological products have progressively increased the number of assets launched per year, starting strongly since the eighties with two to five assets, increasing to the point of delivering almost 20 new products in 2017 and 2018. (Rapid growth seen in biological solutions for crop protection, April 2021 (IHS Markit). This means that crop protection products must be protected because not as many products are being developed and placed on the market as previously launched, while biological products have developed, especially in recent years, into a great alternative so that farmers can make the proper management decisions in their plots to deal with the daily problems they face.
As previously indicated, Latin America is the pantry not only of North America and European countries but also of the Middle East and Southeast Asian countries, within which some regions are putting great pressure on regional producers to decrease the use of agrochemicals and the use of biological products is promoted. This pressure has generated great concern in local producers — exporters who are faced with the dilemma of how to adequately protect crops with the tools they have at hand and how to protect production and the environment in addition to complying with regulations, while continuing to export to consuming countries, taking into account that a large part of the Latin American countries, especially those of the Andean region, are tropical countries that are highly affected by pests and diseases throughout the year and not only during a season as it happens with the countries of the temperate zones; which means that by having different climates with different pest conditions, they demand different types of products. It is up to us to adjust to this reality, but it may take longer than seems acceptable in Europe and other regions.
Let us remember that in Latin America there is a group of highly professional producers who are considered as professional exporters not only of fruits and vegetables, but of coffee, cut flowers, etc., which must properly manage the products they apply to different crops, which must meet very demanding standards in order to be able to be applied in the field since they have a very intensive agriculture that demand high quality standards, which are mainly focused on the food chain of small producers and that have to be organized to produce high value crops, taking into account the appropriate management that their farmers plots require.
We see countries like Chile with exports focused on fresh fruit such as table grapes, cherries, apples, kiwis, and other products. In the Andean Region, Peru produces fruits and vegetables for export, Ecuador provides fruits such as bananas and cut flowers; and Colombia exports avocado, coffee, cut flowers, and fruits such as bananas, citrus fruits and avocado, which must comply with the export protocols and application in the field to basically comply with the standards of the MRLs or Maximum Residue Limits that are the element key for producers and exporters in the ports of destination.
While there is also another group of producers, who, although they are not exporters, have to produce on a small scale for local consumption mainly and are countries that also have highly diversified small-scale local agriculture such as the Andean countries where Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela belong.
These producers grow traditional products for local consumption, for example, rice, corn, potatoes, beans, fruits and vegetables for daily consumption, mainly produced in small areas with low levels of intensification and in many cases where machinery cannot be used due to the topography of mountains that the Andean region possesses.
These producers are also facing internal challenges to be able to comply with the regulations of local supermarkets regarding the products of application in their production areas and how to comply with the requirements of these to be able to commercialize them.
Today in the Andean region, it is very interesting to be able to observe how the activities of registration of biological products are developing, which in the last two years have been increasing in a very important way, especially in Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador, which are today the countries that are leading the export processes in the region.
The total agrochemical and biological records of the Andean region reach about 10,000 records of products in the three countries, with Ecuador being the one with the most records with 36% of the total, followed by Colombia with 33%, and Peru in third place with 31% of the total registrations. The interesting thing about this review is that the region has 8.65% of the total registrations, which are of biological products, with Peru being the country with the highest percentage of registration of biological products in the region with 13% of the total, followed by Colombia with 10.6%, and in third place Ecuador with 2.93%.
This is a very important piece of information because it confirms the great export vocation of Peru, which needs these records to be able to make the applications and rotations necessary to control the different problems and to be able to carry out the export in compliance with international standards in what it does to the application of biological products in their crops.
Colombia does the same with the issue of exporting different agricultural products, integrating this biological alternative in the application of the different management schemes that are being used. Ecuador has the lowest level of products registered in the region, which would be due to the fact that 50% of the Ecuadorian market is mainly focused on banana and cut flower crops for export.
With regard to the agrochemicals market and the biologics market, the increased values are very interesting, especially in the last two years, 2019 and 2020, which have had a very important commercial development due to the inclusion of these products within the rotation and application in producing areas; especially focused on the issue of biological products.
The previous issues have been a response to the needs and requirements of farmers and producing areas by input supplier companies, which have been forced to modify their strategy by converting their chemical portfolios to what are now called hybrid portfolios that include not only chemical products but also biological products that allow farmers to provide new tools and application models so that a better rotation of products can be made in the field by integrating biologicals within the applications of chemical products obtaining an application result according to the needs and requirements of the producers and complying with the export regulations.
It is important to mention that biological products came from the hand of small companies that were opening step by step in the market, showing farmers a new way to control and properly manage their problems in the field, including new substances in the schemes of application achieving adequate rotations for the management of agricultural problems.
An important step that began to be taken by the large agrochemical companies, and that greatly favored the offer in the Andean region, was to look at companies that were developing new portfolios of biological products and biostimulants so that the scenario of mergers and acquisitions that have been taking place since 2012 worldwide of biological companies by agrochemical companies at all levels, as has already happened with the Agraquest company acquired by Bayer CropScience, as well as the Valagro company acquired by Syngenta, the Oroagri company by the Rovensa Group with a clear objective, to complement its product portfolio in order to offer a better portfolio of chemical and biological products to farmers worldwide.
In the future, Latin America is expected to have the highest growth rates in the adoption of biological products applications, especially in the most important crops in the region such as soybean, corn, wheat in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia, which are the professional producers of grains for export in the region.
This will definitely benefit other regions in Latin America such as Mexico, Central America, Chile, and of course the Andean region, because they will have at their disposal new production techniques represented in the biological products that are being used in those extensive crops and that technology will be available to all other farmers of the intensive crops of small scales and production areas.
It is estimated that approximately 70% of all products are still marketed as fresh vegetables and fruits, which will allow the development of these new production methods for the benefit of local producers in the region and proper control of problems in the field.
Get The Newsletter Today!
