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REPORTS: BRAZIL |
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Bugs
in the Farm Business
Mario
Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, (IPS) - Insects, like
viruses and other microorganisms, have
turned into merchandise with a growing
presence in international trade as they are
increasingly used as a means to control
agricultural pests.
By intensifying the flow of goods, tourism
and migration, the globalisation process has
also increased the worldwide dissemination
of funguses, bacteria and other biological
agents that cause severe agricultural
losses.
Until a decade ago, the entry into Brazil of
such harmful species was tallied in the
dozens, but in recent years they have been
measured by the hundreds, say health
authorities.
Because these exotic pests do not have
natural enemies in the local environment,
they spread rapidly and aggressively, and
force heavy expenditures on agro-toxins.
Brazil's consumption of pesticides rose from
a billion dollars in 1991 to 2.5 billion in
2000, according to farming sector reports.
The use of biological control agents (also
known simply as biocontrols) in fighting
farm pests is an alternative that is only
now being developed in this country, but it
has a promising future despite ”cultural
obstacles” like the lack of information
and reluctance to give up farm chemicals,
says José Roberto Parra, expert at the Luiz
de Queiroz School of Agriculture (ESALQ) in
Piracicaba, outside Sao Paulo.
This approach is a great opportunity for
young agronomists and biologists because the
national and international markets for
biocontrols are showing a tendency for rapid
expansion, he said in a conversation with
IPS.
Two ESALQ graduate students have already
seen biocontrols as a great opportunity.
Agronomists Danilo Pedrazzoli and Diogo
Rodrigues Carvalho set up the company Bug
Agentes Biológicos two years ago and now
provide an army of insects and insect eggs
used in combating pest infestations.
The firm has 30 employees and is exporting
the eggs of the Anagasta kuehniella moth,
which serves as food for the Trichogramma, a
parasite used as a biocontrol over at least
18 million hectares of farmland in 16
countries, reports Bug.
The crops for which this ”parasitoid” is
targeted include sugar cane, maize, soya,
cotton and tomato.
The Brazilian company produces 10 kg of moth
eggs each month and exports 30 percent of
the output to the United States and to
European countries like Denmark, France and
Switzerland.
Ten kilos is enough to reproduce 360 million
Trichogramma parasites, says Parra, who also
services as a consultant to Bug.
The exports are favoured by Brazil's low
production costs, according to Alexandre de
Sene Pinto, coordinator of the project to
produce natural enemies to crop pests,
carried out by Bug with financing from the
Sao Paulo Research Foundation, a state
agency that foments technological
development.
Biocontrols offer several advantages,
especially their relatively low cost. In
fighting the sugar cane borer (Diatraea
saccharalis), a moth that takes a heavy toll
on sugar production, the use of commercial
agro-chemicals costs three times more than
the use of biocontrol parasites, Sene Pinto
told IPS.
As a result of this cost disparity, ”80
percent of the sugar cane grown in Sao Paulo
state is treated with biocontrols,” he
said.
The companies producing anti-pest insects
and microorganisms are themselves
multiplying in Brazil, where the technology
began to be debated in the 1970s, notes
Parra. They generally start out small and
quickly expand, as occurred with the Dutch
firm Koppert, which has subsidiaries in
several countries, he added.
The biggest obstacles standing in the way of
greater biocontrol use in Brazil are -- in
addition to cultural barriers -- the lack of
extension activities in the rural sector,
which prevents technology from reaching the
farmers, and the scarcity of qualified
experts in the area.
In the Latin American context, Brazil lags
behind its neighbour Colombia in the
development of biocontrols. Colombia has had
more than 20 companies in the sector for
quite some time. Only now is Brazil in a
position to claim leadership, thanks in
large part to the growing number of graduate
students specialising in biological controls
for farm pests, says Parra.
”The critical mass has grown,” evident
in the fact that more than 600 Brazilian
researchers interested in this alternative
approach gathered for a meeting in mid-June
in Sao Paulo state, said the expert.
Brazil and several other Latin American
countries hold great biodiversity, which is
a contributing factor to advances in the
bio-manufacture of anti-pest species, but
the industrialised nations still hold the
technological advantage, said Parra.
Furthermore, in the tropical countries it is
harder to control pests because there is no
harsh winter to kill off certain
microorganisms, he added.
International trade in biological agents
remains limited due to health barriers, as
precautionary attitudes surround the
introduction of new species, but such
transactions are tending to increase as farm
pests expand across borders, says the ESALQ
expert.
The citrus miner, the Phyllocnistis citrella
larvae, appeared in Brazil in 1996,
originating in Asia, and spread across the
numerous orange groves in Sao Paulo state
due to the lack of natural enemies.
In cases like this, explained Parra, those
enemies generally must be imported in order
to establish environmental equilibrium.
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