← Critical Product/Equipment/Process: Agri, Food & Bio-based (all topics)
Fall armyworm/pink bollworm
What it is
The two pest outbreaks that reshaped Indian crop protection. Pink bollworm developed resistance to Bt cotton from around 2015, returning a pest the technology was meant to control
Fall armyworm, an invasive species detected in India in 2018, spread rapidly through maize and other crops, attacking a host range wide enough to cross cropping systems
Impact on industries
- Demand driver for the agrochemical sector - resistance and invasion both create urgent, price-insensitive spray demand that recurs season after season
- Rewards companies with newer chemistries and biologicals, since resistance erodes the efficacy of older molecules farmers had defaulted to
- Demonstrates the limits of a single-trait technology strategy: pink bollworm resistance undermined the value of Bt cotton without an approved replacement trait available
- Outbreaks are lumpy and unforecastable, so the revenue is not a plannable base, and severe infestation destroys the income funding next season's inputs