Biologicals are ‘economically unfeasible’ According to Report: The Shortcomings and Opportunities
Biologicals are ‘economically unfeasible’ for growers. Equipment manufacturers could change that - AgFunder News
The Need for Precision in Talking “Biologicals”
It’s important to note the report cited is (kind of) emphasizing biopesticides, not biologicals across all segments (eg: biostimulants).
My only tangible takeaways from the cited “Precision spraying and biologicals – driving collaboration” report put together by Cambridge Consultants and Agri-techE is this:
Being precise in how we talk about biologicals is crucial to have a constructive conversation about biologicals.
After all, the “biological” segment is vast:
Case in point, an effective report needs to identify the subsegment they are talking about within biologicals (eg: biostimulants, biopesticides etc), define the segment, and be specific in the questions they ask the interviewees. Otherwise, you conflate bioherbicides, with biostimulants with non-biological methods (eg: highlighting UV-C light in the report). Identifying the cropping segment is often important too (eg: row crops vs. high value permanent crops).
The only attempt at defining the focus in the report actually illustrates where the report goes wrong (emphasis mine):
We invited our contributors to consider use of a wide range of different biological products but with a core focus on biological crop protection products.
Getting a wide range of “biologicals” views makes it difficult to delineate a bioherbicide comment from a biostimulant comment from a non-biological comment.
Anything short of precisely identifying and defining which biological segment is being emphasized is detrimental — case in point calling “biologicals economically unfeasible” will be interpreted by many to be broadly applied across all sub segments. An unfortunate outcome of a poorly executed “report” given it got picked up by AgFunder News, a widely read and respected publication.
I have been guilty of lackadaisical use of the term “biological” too, and have been thankful that individuals have called it out. I hope we can all be more diligent on this front moving forward.