With the concept of ecological protection and food safety deeply rooted in people's minds, chemical pesticides are facing more and more strict supervision, and the government and market also call for the emergence of more safe and effective biological pesticides. In the past 30 years, the global bio control market has grown rapidly from less than US $100 million to billions of US dollars today. According to data from Dunham trimmer, a market research company, the global bio pesticide market has exceeded US $3 billion in 2018. According to the research of CCM, a Chinese chemical industry intelligence analysis company, there are more than 260 bio pesticide production and sales enterprises in 2016 The output value is over 447.71 million US dollars, accounting for about 10% of the annual output value of pesticides in China. In this context, in order to further accelerate the development of the whole biopesticide industry, the Ministry of agriculture and the Ministry of Finance recently issued a series of preferential policies to promote the registration, development and use of biopesticides.
Support technical product research and development: the research and development of new pesticides is a high cost and difficult work. In order to promote the development of biopesticides, China has been exempt from VAT in the wholesale and retail sectors of pesticides. In the past year, China has continued to reduce the value-added tax rate, and the pesticide tax rate has been reduced from 13% to 9%, a decrease of 30%. In addition, in order to encourage technological innovation of enterprises, the enterprise income tax policy stipulates that the R & D expenses of enterprises are allowed to be deducted by an additional 75% based on the actual deduction before tax. In addition, in combination with the implementation of the national key R & D plan of "comprehensive technology research and development of chemical fertilizer and pesticide application reduction and efficiency enhancement", projects such as natural enemy insect control technology and product research and development, synthetic biology of natural biopesticides and combined synthetic technology have been successively set up to support relevant scientific research institutions to carry out more research and development, technology integration and demonstration work. At the same time, the government hopes to speed up the transformation of scientific research achievements and the process of product industrialization based on the advantages of scientific research units and enterprises through the establishment of science and enterprise cooperation and innovation alliance led by enterprises and participated by scientific research units.
Subsidy policy of using biopesticides: high price is an important factor restricting the application of biopesticides in China. In recent years, the Chinese government has been committed to providing financial subsidies to accelerate the promotion and application of green control measures, such as biopesticides, to reduce the burden on farmers. For example, the Ministry of agriculture actively strives for policy and financial support, and arranges 800 million yuan of special funds for prevention and control of crop diseases and insect pests every year, focusing on supporting the integration of unified control and green prevention and control. In terms of promotion of low toxic biopesticides, 10 million yuan is allocated from the department budget for demonstration and promotion every year. At the same time, local governments actively strive for local financial support and implement green prevention and control subsidy policies. For example, Jiangsu Province's finance arranges 50 million yuan per year for subsidies for the use of low toxic biopesticides in vegetables, green prevention and control, and specialized unified prevention and control. Jilin province invests nearly 90 million yuan per year for the implementation of large-scale "bee control" of corn, rice and other crops, and Shanghai municipal and district finance subsidizes 150 yuan and 80 yuan per mu for green prevention and control of diseases and insect pests in vegetables and rice. New pesticide varieties and technologies, such as doxycycline, are supported by these policy funds.
Promote promotion by pilot demonstration: another policy to promote the use of biopesticides is to carry out more pilot demonstration of biopesticides. The demonstration project will help farmers to pay more attention to new technologies and biopesticides, and promote farmers to have a deep understanding of new green pest control technologies. At the same time, in the process of demonstration, farmers can obtain first-hand knowledge and skills of biopesticide application, which helps to maximize the efficacy. Since 2016, in accordance with the idea of "showing the farmers and taking the farmers to work", China has gradually established 600 demonstration areas for the integration of specialized unified control and green control, 150 pilot counties for the whole process of green control of fruit, vegetable and tea pests, and 6 demonstration areas for the integration and application of 10000 mu continuous cropping and 25 demonstration areas for the integration of bee pollination and green control technology over 100 mu. This measure has achieved remarkable results. In 2018, the green control coverage rate of major crops in China reached 29.4%, 9.4% higher than that in 2014.
Simplify the requirements of registration data: in order to encourage the registration of biopesticides and accelerate the pace of biopesticide registration, the Ministry of agriculture, on the premise of ensuring safety and effectiveness, reduces the test content and shortens the test cycle according to the characteristics of different types of biopesticides. For example, microbial pesticide, botanical pesticide preparation and sex attractant (a kind of biochemical pesticide) are free from pesticide residue test; in terms of environmental test data, botanical pesticide, microbial pesticide and biochemical pesticide preparation respectively reduce 4, 7 and 8 environmental test data compared with chemical pesticide (Table 1), while sex attractant can be exempted from environmental test. In terms of experimental cycle and cost, the efficacy test of biopesticides can be completed within one year, which is shorter than that of chemical pesticides by one year, and the overall registration cycle and test cost are lower than that of chemical pesticides. In addition, the Ministry of agriculture will gradually establish a green channel to further accelerate the registration of biopesticides.
We believe that in the next few years, China will take more measures to gradually replace chemical pesticides with biopesticides, and strive to promote the research, registration and use of biopesticides.