Management of Resistance to Novel Insecticides

Abstract

Taking new insecticides from the laboratory to the marketplace is a time-consuming, costly and decidedly risky process. Long-standing challenges of generating the large body of efficacy, toxicity, persistence and metabolism data required by regulatory authorities are now increasingly supplemented by a need to anticipate and counter the threat of pests rapidly acquiring resistance to new molecules. Faced with the unequivocal fact that no insecticide, however novel, is immune to resistance, far greater emphasis is being placed on evaluating resistance risks prior to the approval of new toxicants, and on formulating recommendations for combating resistance following their introduction. Whether viewed from the standpoint of continued profitability or sustained pest susceptibility, resistance management has become a requirement that agrochemical companies and public sector researchers igonore at their peril.