Ecossistemas, a Brazilian company based in
Joinville producing Beauvaria bassianae and Metarhyzium anisopliae
for biological control, has had to close after two years of operation because of
lack of customers and an unwillingness of agronomists to recommend it, according
to Gert Fischer of Pesticide Action Network Brazil. The company was set up by
forward-thinking agronomist Gaimpaolo Marchesini who is a firm believer in
biological control. The facility had a production capacity of five tonnes a
month of entomopathogenic (insect-killing) fungi.
Gert Fischer is concerned that little information on
biological control has been disseminated in Brazil, and there have been few
advances. One exception has involved the successful use of Baculovirus
anticarsia which controls Gemmatalia anticarsia, a lizard that
attacks soya leaves.
Info PAN March/April 1996.
[This
article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 33 as part of
the Focus on Food supplement, September 1996,
page 19]