POTENTIAL HEALTH PROBLEMS DUE TO EXPOSURE IN HANDLING AND USING BIOLOGICAL CONTROL AGENTS

Abstract

Reviewing the European field of biocontrol, a wide range of biological control agents (BCAs) have been or are developed as commercial biopesticides, but little has been invested into the research and development of the products compared to the amount spent on the discovery of chemical pesticides (Butt et al., 1999). This is in contradiction to the necessities for a successful registration because “green” Europe wants to meet high safety standards for BCAs. More than 270 active ingredients are listed in the second edition of The BioPesticide Manual (Copping 2001). The author reports that the number of products which are placed in different orders such as micro-organisms, macro-organisms, natural products, semiochemicals and genes increased to over 1000. Most of the commercialised BCAs in Europe are produced and distributed by small sized enterprises (SEs) which are companies which employ fewer than 50 employees and which have an annual turnover not exceeding € 10 million. These facts are important to point out because these enterprises must calculate with small profits, if any, and very often cannot afford the high costs for a successful registration of their BCAs, which are in most cases niche products.