Presentation Summary

Jeff Waage, Director, Biological Pest Management, CABI Bioscience, President, IOBC, email: j.waage@cabi.org

The Workshop on Alternative Paradigms for Commercial Biological Control has brought together researchers, extensionists, companies, consumer groups, farmers and regulators involved in biological control, as well as representatives of other industries involved in the fermentation and distribution of biological products. This has fostered some important discussion and meaningful output. In this paper I attempt to give a summary of some of this output, in a broader context of trends in the development of IPM internationally.

The current demand for biological control products arises from problems in recent decades with the use of chemical pesticides, including resistance, pest resurgence, environmental pollution and risks to human health. Integrated pest management (IPM) as first conceived in the USA in the 1960s sought to establish economic thresholds to limit interventions against pests and, when these thresholds were crossed, to introduce alternatives to synthetic chemical pesticides including arthropod natural enemies, biopesticides, attractants and botanicals. This technological, product-based approach to IPM has characterized its development in North America. When, in June 1993, President Clinton set the challenge of implementing IPM on 75% of American agricultural land by the year 2000, a Congressional study commissioned to determine how this could be done produced a report entitled Biologically-Based Technologies for Pest Control (Office of Technology Assessment, 1995).

Quite different approaches to IPM have arisen in different parts of the world. In Asia, widespread pesticide use on rice followed the introduction of high yielding, Green Revolution varieties and led to outbreaks of pests. The IPM solution to this problem downplayed technological interventions in favour of conservation of local natural enemies, and focused on farmer participation as a means of reaching millions of smallholders. As farmer-participatory IPM has spread into new crop systems in Asia, Africa and Latin America, it has begun to engage again the need for interventions where local natural enemies are not effective. At present, much BBT production in tropical regions is restricted to plantation industries and collectivized farming systems which produce predators, parasitoids and pathogens for augmentation.

In Europe, IPM developments are driven today more by environmental than agricultural strategy, with countries like Sweden, Netherlands and Denmark deciding to reduce pesticide use by 50% by the year 2000. Here, without directly supporting IPM-friendly products, these political decisions are expected to improve indirectly the markets for Europe s comparatively mature biocontrol business and to help it move out of its present focus on glasshouse systems.

All of these developments reflect a broader international objective of moving towards environmentally friendly crop protection, as stressed for instance in Agenda 21, the blueprint for environment in the next century developed for the 1991 Rio Earth Summit.

A growing national and international commitment to IPM should lead to a growing demand for biologically based technologies for pest management or BBTs. However, it must be said that, over the past thirty years of IPM development, growht in both the demand for BBTs and the supply of BBTs has proven extremely disappointing. Market share remains minute, widely available products remain few, most new products have short half lives. What has gone wrong? The Workshop identified several explanations for this failure.

The political interest in IPM has not translated itself into markets for IPM products. While support for BBTs has come from researchers and regulators, there has been no powerful economic engine driving deployment of BBTs except in crisis situations where pesticide treadmills created specific markets, such as that for Bt on cabbages in SE Asia.

A second explanation relates to the failure of industry to bring products to the market. Governments, international organizations and farming communities have looked to the pest control industry, and particularly the multinational agrochemical companies, to lead development and implementation of BBTs. These companies did invest in BBT R&D, for a number of internal reasons, including: (1) a need to find products to help them manage resistance problems in their chemical product range, (2) a need to be seen to be green, (3) the possibility that they could make some money off of these products, or from proprietary technologies which they will need, and (4) for bacteria and viruses at least, an opportunity to develop expertise relevant to the development of transgenic crops and a shift to biotechnology from crop protection. Despite these justifications, BBTs did not prove to be effective competitors with chemical products in the boardroom or in the market, due in part to comparative cost, income prospects, ease of handling and extension.

Another promising initiative in BBT development was that of a group of smaller companies producing biological or biotechnological products, in anticipation of markets in crop protection. These picked up promising products and received considerable venture capital investment, but many have failed to deliver sustainable products. One reason given at the Workshop for the failure of these venture capital initiatives in BBTs was over-investment, which demanded of these products much larger markets than they could realize. Ironically, many of the businesses may have been sustainable at a lower level of investment and sales, at least in a high-value horticultural crop market.

Underlying the failure of BBTs to take of is, however, a more fundamental problem, the persistence of a chemical paradigm for pest control products which undervalues BBTs and undermines their development.

The chemical paradigm expresses itself most clearly in statements on what products need to be to be competitive . With chemical pesticides as the measuring stick, BBTs are usually certain to fail in areas such as speed of kill, storage, range of targets, ease of use, distribution and cost. The conclusion is simple, biologicals do not make as effective chemicals as chemicals do. Arguments here often tend to be very selective: for instance the common claim that farmers only accept quick-acting products like chemical insecticides and will not wait for an insect pathogen to kill over a few days needs to be viewed in the context of widespread acceptance of slow-acting herbicides. More generally, statements like what the farmer wants .... ignores the facto that the crop protection market has been distinctly supply driven for many years. Only recently, through innovative programmes of farmer participation in IPM, are farmers beginning to play their deserved role in the development of products.

But the Workshop revealed that the chemical paradigm goes beyond the desirable properties of products, involving as well the continuing problems with moving BBTs through extension and regulatory systems molded over time for the movement of chemical products. With respect to regulation, for instance, BBTs face the paradox of often having lower efficacy than chemical competitors, in terms of direct killing power, but being better IPM products by virtue of this, because they conserve natural enemies. Many registration systems fail to address this issue fully. More generally, the chemical paradigm reflects a trend in social values, found also in the pharmaceutical and related industries, towards quick, simple drug-like curative measures as an alternative to a more holistic, preventative approach to the health of agricultural systems which is more appropriate to biological products.

Perhaps the most profound impact of the chemical paradigm on biologicals is to marginalize those properties which make them superior to chemicals, namely their capacity as living organisms to reproduce, persist and spread (ecologically, their numerical response), thereby having an impact much greater than their original killing action (their functional response). The selection of agents for their killing power only is epitomized by the commercial development of Bt relative to other pathogens which survive and reproduce better in crop environments (e.g. fungi, viruses).

In a chemical paradigm, these properties are seen as potentially disadvantageous to commercial prospects, as they may reduce sales. But there are, of course, commercially successful products sold into agroecosystems where self-replication and spread is a desirable property, e.g. many seeds and plants. Similarly, the fact that demand for BBTs may decline as natural enemy populations recover from years of chemical pesticide use can be seen as a disadvantage commercially in a chemical paradigm, or a positive characteristic of another kind of product. Bt, for instance, has an important role to play in recovery of pesticide treadmills in vegetable systems around the developing world. Here, it may best be viewed as an environmental remediation product, perhaps transient in nature, but with a continuing small demand in restored systems. Or, put another way, BBTs may be seen as the methodone of IPM.

We are today at a unique historical juncture. Demand for IPM is increasing. The systems from which we have anticipated IPM products have failed to deliver. Hence, the significance of this Workshop and its title is clear - a new paradigm is quickly needed, and champions for that must be found. In addressing this, I believe the workshop has identified two ways forward, which are complementary. The first involves continuing to move BBTs through the present chemically-focused system, changing that system by this process. The second involved developing an entirely new paradigm for BBTs, linked to current trends in IPM.

Let me illustrate the former process with two examples. Sales of Bt account for the vast majority of BBT sales worldwide. Most would agree that Bt as developed is not so much a biological control product as a chemical toxin delivered in a protein pill which gives it a desirable level of persistence and possibly specificity. Despite that, its development has has a very substantial impact on public acceptance of biological control, on development of positive regulatory systems and, particularly on IPM. In parts of the tropical world, for instance, Bt has become a critical component of IPM systems on brassica crops whcih involves conservation of specific parasitoids, augmented by Bt sprays when populations are high. Without it such IPM systems are difficult to implement.

Another example comes from my direct experience. Recently, CABI Bioscience and collaborating institutions in Africa (collectively, the LUBILOSA programme) have developed a myco-insecticide for control of locusts and grasshoppers, with support from a consortium of development assistance agencies. This will soon go into commercial production in Africa for locust control, with considerable support from the international community. But beyond its direct impact on locusts, this product, Green Muscle (after the green muscardine fungus, Metarhizium anisopliae) is also having an important impact on African pest management, breaking new ground in registration and use of biologicals on the continent and undermining one of the pillars of African pest management, the concept that chemical pesticide stocks must be maintained to deal with migratory pest populations.

The most significant output of the Workshop has been the elaboration of a new paradigm for commercial biological control. This paradigm is still forming, but I have identified four of its likely properties which emerged from presentations and discussion:

1. Exploiting the advantages of living products. The new paradigm would focus more on the inoculation of agroecosystems with biological agents and the encouragement of their reproduction and spread. Not only does this pose potential economic advantages, but it exploits that property which makes biologicals superior to chemicals. An example raised at the Workshop is the use of certain strains of Trichoderma sp. to protect plant roots from invasion by pathogenic fungi and bacteria. Seed dressings of Trichoderma have no inherent advantage over seed dressing with chemical fungicides - both can protect the seed stage. What makes Trichoderma a better product for the farmer is its potential to grow and spread with the root system, protecting the plant through the entire life of the crop.

2. Imaginative product concepts. In the new paradigm, packaged, registered products on the shelf are but one way to deliver biologicals, and perhaps not the best. Biologicals which are local natural enemies, locally produced and returned to the crop ecosystem may be more effectively viewed as plant growth promoters than pest control agents, much like mulches and manures which create the right balance of nutrients and microflora and fauna. Novel commercial systems in the USA, such as on-farm production of complexes of beneficial soil bacteria, delivered to the crop through irrigation systems, move us away from a product focus to a process focus, breaking the chemical paradigm that natural enemies must be centrally produced and delivered to the farmer. Similarly, the introduction of a commercially produced natural enemy that enhances the action of local natural enemies (e.g. a biopesticide spray in a field crop) gives a new meaning to the concept of what constitutes the product . Finally, in the biological control context, knowledge is itself a product, if it allows the farmer to make on-farm biological control agents more effective in controlling pests (e.g. through creation of refuges, specific cropping practices).

3. Knowledge-intensive and farmer-engaged. In an IPM context, biological control products complement natural control. Their use on a calendar-based, prophylactic basis is not efficient. Their effectiveness depends on the level of natural control in a particular field, and observations on when augmentation is needed. This, in turns, involves farmers in key elements of successful IPM, regular observation and decision making and conservation of natural enemies. Biological products in the new paradigm are therefore knowledge-intensive and require that farmers understand their crop ecosystem and the dynamics of good and bad bugs in it. In a developing country smallholder context, farmers may hold this local, IPM expertise as a result of farmer field school (FFS) training. In a tropical plantation crop, it may be held by a crop proteciton officer, whereas on large farms in developed countries it may be crop protection consultant who make observations and decisions about biological control.

4. Biocontrol businesses are local/regional and of medium scale. Lessons from the multinational agrochemical industry, and the venture capital businesses have revealed that successful BBTs will not be developed in businesses which forces them to be more successful than markets allow, in order to meet high overhead costs or returns on investment. Appropriately-scaled businesses will serve more local markets, gaining in this way advantages as well in their relevance to local IPM systems, in speed of delivery, distribution and extension support and reduced problems of storage. Community based biocontrol businesses already thrive in certain commodities such as citrus in California and South Africa, and sugar cane in Asia and Latin America. The farm sector has considerable advantages as a base for business because of the local abundance and relatively low cost of the key ingredients to BBT production, namely plants, pests, natural enemies, fermentation substrates and, in some cases, labour. Indeed most successful biological control businesses have grown out of farming businesses (e.g. the European glasshouse industry). The concept of local production and distribution of BBTs within the farming sector, backed up by centralized support for R&D, regulation and promotion, perhaps through a franchising system, emerged strongly from Workshop discussions.

From these four elements, a new paradigm of pest management may emerge, linked closely to the principles of IPM. It will need fostering, in the face of a continuing chemical paradigm and the systems this controls. How should this best be done?

Biological control technologies have received considerable investment in recent decades, but virtually all of this has been in the area of research into new methods. In the private sector, this has led to many proprietary methods which now gather dust on shelves, unlikely to bring anyone any benefit for lack of a market large enough to interest their owners. For instance, one multinational recently suggested that annual sales of $50m was the threshold for a viable biological product - the product in question was an insect virus engineered to behave more like a chemical. Incentives have also been introduced into regulatory systems, in the form of fast-track registration of biologicals now underway in North America and proposed in Europe.

However, I believe that the Workshop identified the real bottle-neck to development of the new paradigm to be the creation of the viable, small-scale and local businesses to supply and support products in the farming sector. Support to small business development, either directly or through assistance for backstopping R&D or product subsidy, even insurance for farmers using products, may give the greatest support to development of the new paradigm. One of the key problems for small biocontrol products in the past, the lack of effective distribution and support systems at the farm level, is another area where support may help to kick-start successful commercial enterprises.

Development of a new paradigm for commercial biological control must acknowledge and make use of other paradigm shifts. One of the most important is the change today in the engine driving IPM from the public to the private sector. We see today a growing interest in the food industry, including retail supermarkets, growers cooperatives and large food companies, to adopt IPM as a means of minimizing risk and as a marketing advantage with an environmentally and health-conscious market. Through certification systems for growers and green product schemes of retailers, IPM is gaining an economic value in the marketplace and demanding a premium. The role of the organic food industry in generating this demand has been great, despite the very small market share which it has and its potential conflicts with an IPM approach.

The shift of IPM development from the low power, pushing engine of traditional, publically supported systems of research and regulation to the high-power pulling engine of privately supported systems like the retail food industry and the consumers it serves has profound implications. Reduction of chemical use will be a growing issue, as will consumer awareness and involvement in food products and their production. Vertical integration of the food industry from farm to consumer may facilitate biological product systems through creating large local demand by farmers for biological methods recommended by food retailers or by certified integrated production systems under which label products are sold at premium. BBTs and a new paradigm for their deployment, need to anticipate this trend.

Thus, from this Workshop emerges a vision of future crop protection which involves more than putting benign biological products into the current crop protection machine. That machine is clearly in need of overhaul. From its reconsideration arises a new paradigm for biological products in crop protection, one which is profoundly ecological, in its focus on self-perpetuating, low cost sytems. and profoundly social in its focus on local and regional processes and farmer participation. I hope that the output of this Workshop will provide impetus to the development of that paradigm.

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