Ask the Expert
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Jan Mostert
Head of Biorational Innovation Team
Certis Belchim
ABG: What are some of the challenges in innovating biorationals to work alongside traditional crop protection chemical products?
JM: The most important challenges in innovating biorationals to work alongside traditional crop protection chemical products or conventional products are the price per hectare, the performance, and the ease of use. For greater use of biorationals in conventional lower-value cropping systems, they must become both more reliable in terms of performance and closer to the cost per hectare of conventional products. The effect of biorationals is less persistent as they tend to degrade more quickly and often need to have direct contact with the pest or disease to act. To achieve this contact, a change of application techniques or even a change of the whole cropping system, is required.
Even then, they still need to deliver a profitable yield for the growers. So far, the reliability and level of performance of biorationals cannot match the best-suited conventional products for these crops, and they cannot secure a harvestable yield for growers. On the other hand, why should it be necessary to stop using the best-suited conventional products? Their eco-tox profiles fit the most modern criteria, so we should just make smart use of them, especially in these lower-value, broadacre crops. In the meantime, our search for new biorationals that can truly compete with today’s conventional products continues. We are very confident that in the coming decade we shall see the first of such game-changing biorational products entering the market, even in these broadacre crops. It is a question of time to find them.
Another challenge, of course, is the regulatory pressure brought by the consequences of the Green Deal/Farm to Fork strategies, especially as there is no significant improvement in the timing of the registration process to help companies achieve the targets set by the EU.
David Hiltz
Director of Global Regulatory Affairs
Acadian Plant Health
ABG: What role do biostimulants play in achieving Europe’s Green Deal?
DH: The Green Deal presents a unique opportunity for biostimulant manufacturers to help the agriculture industry in Europe, who are being asked to reduce synthetic chemical use and reduce fertilizer use, and yet continue to feed Europe and the rest of the world. If you look at the actual regulation itself, the Green Deal is calling for a reduction of about half of the pesticide used in Europe right now, a 20% drop in the use of fertilizers to grow crops, in a bid to prevent nutrient loss. A lot of growers in the agricultural community in Europe think this will be catastrophic. If we all of a sudden we limit the amount of synthetic chemicals and fertilizers that farmers are able to use to grow crops, we are going to see decreased yields.
Plant biostimulant companies are in a unique position where we can promote our products, which we know can help overcome some of the challenges that we’ve just described. It’s critical that the agricultural community embrace these more natural products and solutions if they want to try to maintain these crop yields that they traditionally have and continue to supply food to the world.
If you look at Acadian’s biostimulants, as an example, they’re proven crop inputs that can help mitigate some of these mandated reductions in crop inputs. How can they do that? Plant biostimulants can help improve nutrient use efficiency. That means when a farmer is putting the fertility out in the field, a plant biostimulant applied will help that farmer ensure that the nutrients he’s providing through fertilizer are being used properly, taken into the plant, and in the case of the Green Deal where they’re being told to use less fertilizer, it will allow them to make sure every kilogram of nitrogen or kilogram of potash they are allowed by law to use, is actually available and utilized by the plant.
Derek Oliphant
Co-Founder
AgbioInvestor
ABG: With mancozeb getting phased out from the market, do you anticipate growth in market value on the resistance management segment as farmers would end up spending more on high value products?
DO: Mancozeb leaving the market does provide opportunity for the use of other high value products, as a number of products utilizing different modes of action would be required to provide the same efficacy and resistance management properties as mancozeb. However, there is also potential for alternative multi-site fungicides to gain from any removals of mancozeb, such as sulphur (for example, UPL positioning a liquid formulation of sulphur as a biofungicide alternative to mancozeb) and folpet, with the latter having made strong gains in the EU in recent years as a chlorothalonil replacement.
David Li
Marketing Director and Chief Analyst
SPM Strategy and Intelligence
ABG: What will the geopolitical impact be on exporting to the United States in the future?
DL: The current geopolitical situation in China is beyond what can be covered by brief analysis. In 2022, the export of Chinese agrochemicals to the U.S. was strong. If further tensions happen, the gap of Chinese supply might not be bridged in the short term. A shortage of supply and incredibly high prices could return when sanctions or tariffs on Chinese commodities come.
In the long term, the era of China’s low-cost, bulk commodity manufacturing that has continued to supply developed country markets for the past few decades is going to be over. China is undergoing a radical economic transformation from a real estate- and finance-driven economy to a technologically innovative and sustainable one. China’s future exports to the U.S. and world market will be completely different from what they are today in terms of category, value-added products, and volume. In the crop protection sector, we can predict an increase in the share of nano-pesticide products, biologicals, innovative formulations, and novel AIs, etc. •