Welcome to the very first edition of Ag Biologicals Insights, a bi-monthly newsletter from the No-Till Farmer editorial team! This is your one-stop shop for timely, relevant resources and information to learn about the research, product development and practical use of ag biological products.
Each edition will be loaded with original biologicals-focused content you can’t get anywhere else, including in-depth farmer features, research news, video presentations, data from on-farm trials, exclusive interviews with industry experts, product spotlights and much more.
Biologicals expert Pam Marrone, executive chair and co-founder of Invasive Species Corp., said something that immediately caught my attention during her recent conversation with No-Till Farmer senior editor John Dobberstein.
“Biologicals are now mainstream. Five or 10 years ago they were still emerging. Now they’re about 10% of the total crop protection market.”
Ten percent is significant, but that’s ultimately just scratching the surface of where these emerging products are headed in the next several years, according to Marrone.
“By 2040, the biologicals market will be as big as the chemicals market…”
“There are about 70-80 new active ingredients for crop protection going through the EPA and only about 8 or 9 new synthetic chemicals,” Marrone says. “That means there’s going to be fewer chemicals on the market. That will be replaced by biologicals. By 2040, the biologicals market will be as big as the chemicals market. But that said…about 50% of farmers still don’t know anything about biologicals, are not aware of them, don’t know how to use them, and if they’ve heard of them — they’re not confident in using them.”
The bottom line is there’s still so much to learn about biologicals. That sums up the motivation behind our launch of Ag Biologicals Insights.
No-Till Farmer founder and editor Frank Lessiter refers to our content as “meat and potatoes.” So, what better way to kick off the first edition of Ag Biologicals Insights then with a hearty breakdown of our first-ever Ag Biologicals Benchmark Survey. Scroll to the second story in the lineup and dig in.
Thanks for joining us on this new journey! If you have any questions, story requests or insights to share from your own experience with using biologicals, shoot me an email atNNewman@LessiterMedia.com.
