Author
Andy W Sheppard
andy.sheppard@csiro.au
CSIRO
Canberra
Abstract
Biological solutions for weed management is a rapidly growing market with the continual de-registration of synthetic herbicides due to declining public acceptability and growing and global widespread herbicide resistance in broad acre agriculture. A global transition away from synthetic pesticides and herbicides is now underway. Global agrochemical companies started to transition early but largely failed to deliver commercial products. These companies are now helping to support a growing a small and medium enterprise (SME) ecosystem of bio-pesticide development, based on microbes, microbial metabolites and RNAi. This innovation ecosystem approach is expanding rapidly in Brazil, USA, India and now the EU. Bioherbicide alternatives have been an even greater challenge, as more than 20 years of research in their development, based on fungal agents, often sourced from classical biocontrol research, has led to only one or two products and little commercial viability. This lack of progress toward bioherbicide alternatives for weeds should be stimulating a broader more global consideration of classical weed biological control for widespread weeds of agriculture, but increased adoption remains slow. This talk will consider market drivers and tease apart why classical biocontrol of weeds is not benefiting from the global move away from synthetic herbicides, seeking to understand the impediments and to look to solutions for classical biocontrol to more internationally recognized.
keywords
bioherbicide
markets
global trends
adoption
public acceptability
Highlights
Global trends towards biological based management are not benefiting weed biocontrol
A range of market drivers seem to impede uptake of classical biological control of weeds
Identifying and addressing impediments to weed classical biological control adoption