The Correlation of Sustainability and Biopesticides

With 2050 looming in the not-so-distant future, the world is wondering how industry professionals expect to feed 9 billion people. The careful balance of mass production and sustainable practices is teetering precariously on the shoulders of decision makers. At the Hilton Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, the Council of Producers and Distributors of Agrotechnology met to better understand and promote sustainable practices, and the threefold definition of what that phrase truly means.

The Biopesticide Industry Alliance’s (BPIA) Bill Dunham explained that it’s not as simple as just taking care of the Earth, he said. “Sustainability has a triple bottom line: people, prosperity, and the planet.”

Advertisement

In clearer terms, Dunham is alluding to the simple fact that sustainability isn’t just about saving a few gallons of water a day. It means promoting ecological awareness in a way that protects economic interests and ensures that end users and consumers understand the role crop inputs have played in protecting them.

The crop inputs that best fill the bill for the three-fold task of tackling sustainability in agriculture are biopesticides, Dunham says. While major chemical companies such as IFC, Bioworks, and Bayer have made multimillion dollar investments in recent years to compete in the biological-arena, Dunham says there is still a lot that can be done to promote the adoption of the environmentally friendly and yield enhancing crop inputs.

1) Branding: Dunham emphasizes that while it’s good to mark a product as sustainable, it is equally, if not more, important to include information as to what it really means to provide a low/no residue brand.

Top Articles
Rainbow Agro Announces Manufacturing Expansion in North America

2) Innovation and Green Jobs: Industry legislation is constantly changing and evolving. Dunham says that staying abreast of legislative trends and supporting continuing legislation to incentivize research and development.

3) Grower Programs: Although many companies are making biopesticides a fixture in their portfolios, ultimately it is the grower that makes the purchasing decision. In order to help them understand the importance of the use of these products, Dunham suggests working with government programs such as the USDA conservation program and the EU Sustainable Use Directive to promote the benefits of biopesticide use.

4) Production Definition: Drawing the correlation between sustainability and biopesticides is key to solidifying the relationship. “We need to add to the definition of sustainable agriculture to include that it means the program is using a signifigant portion of biopesticides in production.”

5) Definition of Standards: Growers have complex limits they must pay extremely close attention to. Publicizing the fact that biopesticides are exempt from MRL tolerances will help companies get into growers’ crop input rotation.

Hide picture