Pesticide Management and Insecticide Resistance

David Watson

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9780127386508
• eBook ISBN:
  9780323143806
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Agriculture
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Pesticide Management and Insecticide Resistance explores the problem of insect resistance to pesticides and reviews various approaches to pesticide management and safety. It looks at the environmental hazards of pesticide residues and their regulation, along with application techniques aimed at maximum efficiency against the pest and minimum waste to pollution, safety considerations in the development of pest control programs, and pesticide monitoring. Divided into eight parts encompassing 49 chapters, this volume begins with an overview of the global pesticide industry and the costs of commercializing pesticides relative to their profit potential. It then introduces the reader to the release of fluorohydrocarbon propellants in pesticidal aerosols and their hazards to the ozone layer, management of pests in urban environments, international plant protection, the current status of DDT, the importance of training pest-control personnel, and procedures of forest spraying. Other chapters focus on pesticide management safety from a medical perspective; pesticide safety as it relates to the manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution of pesticides; importance of pesticide application equipment and related field practices in developing countries; and the importance of pesticides in successful pest management programs. This book is a valuable resource for scientists, students, researchers, and policymakers who want to ensure the safety of consumers, applicators, and harvesters when using pesticides.

The Costs of Commercializing Pesticides

C.A.I. Goring*, Agricultural Products Department, Dow Chemical U.S.A., Midland, Michigan

Publisher Summary

The chapter focuses on the costs involved in commercializing pesticides as related to their profit potential. There is a continuing need to discover and commercialize new insecticides and insect control agents because of shifts in the relative importance of various pest populations and the development of resistance. Although new products will replace some of the current products, few really novel markets will be developed. The scope of research and development (R&D) is now similar for all companies commercializing new products, particularly because of the standardization being imposed on the industry by government regulatory organizations. Each company has its own program for securing chemicals (either by purchase or synthesis) and a laboratory evaluation group. They also have an internal field evaluation group and in addition, an external field program in cooperation with many public and private organizations. The manufacturer must develop new pesticides with large potential markets or extraordinary biological activity if his R&D efforts are to pay off. The chances of doing either are limited, and if the costs of R&D continue to increase more rapidly than the size of the available markets, there will eventually be little or no financial incentive for discovering new and improved pesticides.

The commercialization of new pesticides is vitally necessary for the expansion of world food production. New pesticides are needed for unsolved production problems, when pest resistance occurs, or to further reduce the potential for human toxicity or environmental damage.

The private corporations commercializing new pesticides must generate adequate profits. The need for adequate profits severely constrains the manufacturer’s choice of research objectives and pesticides for commercialization. The costs and risks must be weighed against the potential rewards of success. The manufacturer has to cope with a changing environment in which expanding government regulation is disproportionately increasing the product costs relative to the potential rewards. Furthermore, each new product in the marketplace reduces the chances for further improvement.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the pesticide industry on a worldwide basis and to provide a perspective on the costs of commercializing pesticides as related to their profit potential.

DIMENSIONS OF THE PESTICIDE INDUSTRY

The worldwide market for pesticides at the user level in 1975 was slightly over five billion dollars (Anonymous, 1975). Sales of pesticides produced in the USA increased about 26% in 1975 (National Agricultural Chemical Association, 1976). A similar increase is expected worldwide. The market at the manufacturer’s level is about 75%−80% of the market at the user level and thus equal to about 4.5−5.5 billion dollars in 1975.

The cost of research and development (R&D) is probably in the range of 6%-7% of sales (NACA, 1976) which amounts to 270−385 million dollars. Companies commercializing older products probably spend no more than 2%-3% of sales on research and development. Companies committed to commercializing new products could spend as much as 8%−10% of sales on research and development and even more where current sales are minimal and a determined effort is being made to enter the market with new products.

The relation between the number of companies and number of pesticides manufactured per company (Anonymous, 1976) is shown in Fig. 1. Thirty of the largest companies manufacture 522 pesticides while the remaining 125 companies made 374 materials. The former group probably accounts for 85%−90% of pesticide sales at the manufacturer’s level.

Fig. 1 Relationship between number of companies and number of pesticides manufactured per company in 1975.

The estimated number of pesticides manufactured (Anonymous, 1976), sales income, and R&D expenditures for 16 major prod...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• ACADEMIC PRESS RAPID MANUSCRIPT REPRODUCTION
• Copyright
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1: The Costs of Commercializing Pesticides
• Part 1: Pesticide Residues and Their Relationship to Pesticide Management
• Part 2: Pesticide Safety
• Part 3: Role of Application Techniques in Respect to Safe and Efficient Pest Control
• Part 4: Pesticide Resistance II
• Part 5: The Impact of Chlorofluorocarbons/Ozone
• Part 6: An International View of the Significance and the Control of Urban Pests
• Part 7: Agricultural Pests in International Commerce
• Part 8: Contributed Papers
• Index