With India becoming the most populous country globally, meeting its food and nutritional sufficiency through sustainable growth of agriculture has become a strong imperative for it. India needs to double its food production by 2025 and triple it by 2050.

Alongside, challenges around the safety of ecology, food, and farmers also need to be addressed urgently. The importance of biological agricultural inputs has assumed significant importance as enablers of integrated farm management.

Today, biologicals can take on many different forms and applications. They encompass biostimulants, biopesticides and biofertilisers. These solutions can be applied at-plant, as a foliar, or into the soil to target plant pathogens, nematodes, and insects.

We can even drop living, breathing, walking, and sometimes flying biopesticides in the form of parasitoids or predatory arthropods from a drone or out of a sprayer.

At the end of the day, what we’re doing when we apply a biological is colonising a growing environment. Whether it be with a bacterium, insect, arthropod, or nematode. We colonise the space to outcompete, consume and/or reduce a pathogen or pest population.

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Timing the key

Timing is a significant piece of the IPM conversation as we have to play with application stages to determine when a biological solution best benefits a grower’s crop. For most crops, that’s usually earlier in the season, earlier in the pest life cycle, and earlier than we might think.

Then we have to think through the rest of the season and the tools we use to pinpoint how we want to rotate our conventional and biological modes of action. Part of this planning includes consideration of the pathogen or pest’s biology and phenology.

Taking this into account helps us maximise the efficacy of the biological in the field. The biological category is gaining traction. So, why should growers give biologicals a fair shake?

I look at biologicals like this: biologicals are often a preventative measure. They aren’t usually a “fixer” like a fair majority of our conventional chemistry — it’s important to note we have conventional chemistry available that is also prophylactic. I think it’s useful to treat biologicals as part of an integrated system rather than a silver bullet.

In practical terms:

  • Biologicals are an additional tool in the toolbox to help mitigate and slow resistance. As an alternative mode of action and often the route of exposure, they play the role of rotational partner and can complement conventional pesticides in an overarching crop management strategy.
  • Signal words and exposure risk are pain points biologicals can negate for growers. Currently, no maximum residue levels (MRLs) are associated with biologicals.
  • They are prophylactic tools in the sense of preventing pests and diseases but can also prevent the use of more sprays later in the season. This helps save the grower money, reduces the need for labour, cuts down on equipment running and associated fuel costs, and minimises exposure to high-risk modes of action.
Lack of access

While an average Indian farmer continues to use traditional biological solutions, their global counterparts are steadily moving towards advanced biologicals, or even their premixes, apart from new generation pheromones, etc.

While Indian farmers are second to none in adopting advanced technologies for enhancing crop productivity, they do not have access to such products because Indian regulators are yet to frame the requisite guidelines to register such products.

Farmers’ adoption of existing biological solutions, despite continuous extension work and subsidies to promote them, is way too slow due to their unreliable bio-efficacy. Unlike their global counterparts, they are less stable under Indian conditions.

Multi-pronged approach

The current aspiration of India is to not only be self-sufficient but also be a global supplier of food and a major player in organic agriculture. This necessitates the country to bring out biologicals from the sandbox. To that end, here are some of the urgent steps India needs to take:

● Better favourability towards the latest technology: With due protection against potential ‘misuse’ of norms that may affect the interest of farmers and businesses, the latest agriculture technologies must be explored. Like in the case of drones, the regulators should bite the bullet and advance science.

Allowing imported biologicals to be registered in India, and attracting major innovators with incentives to manufacture such biologicals in India would be much-desired steps in this direction. Additionally, once safety and regulatory requirements are met, approvals for such products should be fast-tracked.

● Need for government guidelines on new crop solutions: Introduce well-thought guidelines on the latest technologies such as sprayable pheromones with active involvement of the industry. This will strengthen the larger pest management ecosystem in India without any adverse impact on the environment. These advanced products are more environment-friendly due to their robust photosensitivity and thermal sensitivity.

● Build on the current R&D infrastructure: To attract significant private and public investment and offset the present low spending on biologicals, R&D growth is critical. Utilising established mechanisms such as developing PPP infrastructure may go a long way to developing customised products. Moreover, India’s pool of scientists in biotech and biosciences is an asset that can make the country a trusted global supplier of biologicals.

● Leverage innovative agriculture start-ups: Globally, many start-ups are coming up in the field of biologicals. Recently, FMC took over Biophero, the world’s largest pheromone company, and launched its own biologicals vertical.

● The ecosystem to safeguard intellectual rights for such products must be strengthened to protect the innovators’ interest so they don’t lose out on their investment.

Private sector’s role

The country needs synchronous, multi-stakeholder communication on the importance of biologicals as a part of the larger pest management strategy, with input use efficiency. In fact, with the correct use of chemical fertilisers, biologicals can improve their efficacy, while safeguarding the soil.

In the connected world, information travels as fast as light. Therefore, private organisations and regulators can keep a tab on the latest developments in the sector and work towards developing necessary guidelines for robust crop health.

Efficient regulations must precede commercialisation, rather than commercialisation waiting for a regulatory framework to be prepared. Through public-private collaboration, the industry can be a knowledge and resource centre. The time is ripe to mainstream agri-innovations with an integrated approach and enable their well-timed introduction in India.

The author is Director, Public & Industry Affairs, FMC India

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