Benefits of BioPesticides

While at the Potato Expo last month, I had the opportunity to visit with BioPesticide Industry Alliance Executive Director Bill Stoneman about his organization and the use of biological approaches to pest management. He shares some of the benefits
Stoneman: “Most of our business in conjunction with conventional agricultural practices so it will be used in rotation say with a fungicide or an insecticide for several key reasons — one is resistance management and another key reason is residues.”
So how many ag producers are currently using biologics?
Stoneman: “Regular users maybe 20 percent. A survey was done not by us but a market research company and I will quote them — saying about 82 percent of U.S. farmers have or do use biological pesticides whether they know it or not. They maybe don’t use them every season. They’ve tried some things maybe on some smaller acreage; maybe on some lands that they’ve had particular problems that they want to try some alternatives.”
Stoneman urges producers
Stoneman: “One of the things I would really encourage is that they really think seriously about integrated pest management and not just program spraying. Integrated pest management can include biologicals in rotation to look at resistance management and also to look at tolerances or MRLs. That is what I would really promote — we can talk about sustainability and we can talk about integrated pest management but if we don’t really apply it.”