China's pesticide and fertilizer market seeks biological alternatives

Biopesticides and biofertilizers – thosemade from natural sources like animals, plants, bacteria, and certain minerals– are gaining popularity in China, as the government pays more attention tosafety and low-carbon development.

On Tuesday, China's Ministry of Agricultureand Rural Affairs said pesticide companies and dealers nationwide are alreadyusing the "one bottle-one code" identity system to keep track ofquality, as well as keeping illegal pesticides – which are often highly toxic –out of the market. The agriculture regulator also called for cutting the amountof chemical fertilizers in use, in a recent carbon emission reduction plan forrural areas.

"The production of biologicalpesticides is more eco-friendly as it leaves no residue," said ZhangHongyan, the vice president of Shanghai Nongle Biological Products. "Butit was a lot harder for us to promote biological pesticides rather thanchemical pesticides 20 years ago, because Chinese farmers were mostly lookingfor effectiveness and quick results, instead of quality."

Zhang said things started to change around2015 when the top policymakers spoke more frequently about environmentalprotection and quality growth. The company started to offer a package ofagricultural services in 2016, with greener fertilizers and pesticidesolutions. Three of its self-developed raw biopesticides are about to becommercialized now.

Farmer cooperatives in Shanghai suburbshave been adopting these green solutions since 2017. Some of them took advicefrom the local authorities and apply biopesticides four to five times a year toavoid rice blasts and sheath blight.

According to lab research by ShanghaiJiaotong University, the most widely used biopesticides among thosecooperatives are developed from metabolites of bacterium, which can be storedfor two or three years – the same as chemical ones. The university has justcompleted lab work on a new, more efficient biopesticide.

"With gene modification and metabolicpathway modification, we can get 14 grams of the pesticide from every 1 literof fermentation liquid. Normally, the extract would be just 0.05 grams,"said He Yawen, the director at the joint R&D center for biopesticide andbiofertilizer jointly established by Shanghai Jiaotong University and ShanghaiNongle Biological Products.

It seems that China is moving in the samedirection as the global agriculture market, where biopesticides are about tomake up a $7 billion market next year, with an annual compounded growth rate of16 percent. That's almost three times faster than the growth of the overallpesticide market. According to data analysis company Market Research Engine,the biopesticide market is driven by factors such as increased pest resistance,more bans on synthetic pesticides, and advancements in integrated pestmanagement solutions.