Certis Belchim's Strategies to Increase Biologicals Adoption

The global agricultural sector faces an increasing demand for sustainable development, presenting unprecedented opportunities for the biological agri-input market. 

However, biologicals companies are challenged to differentiate themselves in an increasingly crowded marketplace to expand the adoption of their bio-solutions. 

In this interview, Kevin Price, Head of Corporate Affairs at Certis Belchim, will discuss how to differentiate products, train sales teams, and provide services for the farmers etc., offering valuable experience to the companies in the industry to increase biologicals adoption.

How do you differentiate your product offerings from competitors in the biologicals’ markets?

The challenges related to food production and demands placed on growers are multi-faceted, encompassing political, environmental and those from consumers, as well as the fundamental requirement to produce food in sufficient quantity and in a sustainable way. Consumer concerns relate mainly to food safety but also increasingly to the environmental impact of food production itself. Food safety is seen as particularly important in fresh produce, i.e. fruit and vegetables, though it is still relevant in processed commodities such as cereals and potatoes. 

In this context, Certis Belchim has been focused on providing solutions to growers that will help them to meet the requirements of their customers (food retailers, processors and end consumers) through an Integrated Crop Management approach for well over 15 years. Our Growing For The Future Programme (G4TF) was designed initially to address the specific challenge of chemical pesticide residue reduction in protected crops using combinations of biological, biorational and synthetic chemical crop protection and nutrition products to produce crops that meet or exceed the safety and quality standards set by regulators and food chain stakeholders. A collaborative initiative with the agricultural sector, it seeks to provide the best agronomic solutions for farmers, developing new integrated production programmes for a wide range of protected fruit and vegetable crops and, more recently outdoor perennial crops such as top fruit, vines, citrus and olives, thus facilitating more sustainable agriculture. 

With the continued growth of our portfolio of Biorational products (including natural fungicides, bactericides, insecticides, nematicides, acaricides, biostimulants and mating disruption pheromones) and long experience of developing integrated crop management programmes, the company has built a reputation over the years as a leader in the biologicals market. We believe this programme approach, combining a range of crop protection and crop production solutions drawn from a ‘toolbox’ of biological, biorational and synthetic chemical products and related services, can offer a sustainable approach to crop protection and the production of safe food. Biorationals now represent 16% of our total sales, a significant part of the offer, driven by constant emphasis on the importance of correct use and application of the right products within integrated programmes to achieve optimum results that not only reduce chemical residues in produce but also have a positive environmental impact.

What type of training do you provide your sales teams to effectively sell biological products? 

G4TF has been developed successfully as a collaborative project with producers and experience has proven that correct usage and application of each specific programme is vital for effective control of pests and disease. It is therefore crucial that we share the knowledge gained through our development work with our sales teams and to this end we have established our own Learning Academy. Our technical experts produce specific training modules by crop and by country that are shared internally in the various teams involved. Our Sales teams also visit the research stations to learn about the trials being conducted, as well as following the numerous projects conducted for us around Europe by Contract Research Organisations. In this way they keep abreast of developments and accurate results that equip them with the background detail to the programmes they are promoting to our customers and to growers. It is important that they can offer and advise on crop protection solutions, encompassing all aspects of crop production to improve yield and quality, thus supporting the profitability of the growers.

Have you made any improvements over the past years in the service or education you provide for the farmers?

The fruits of our long experience in developing the G4TF programmes have been extended to cover a wide range of crops and countries so that we can serve more farmers in their endeavours to meet the requirements of the retailers and consumers to reduce the usage of synthetic chemical crop protection products and to farm more sustainably. We are now working with growers in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France and Belgium through our local branches and have adapted the programmes to local needs, conditions and regulations.

With contributions from external experts who have worked with us on the implementation of G4TF projects, we have established the Growing Academy - Certis Belchim to inform farmers, agricultural technicians and advisors. Alongside these experts, our own qualified professionals share the huge amount of knowledge acquired over the years through online training master classes. The Growing Academy covers not only crop protection but also nutrition, soil health and sustainability, focusing on the implementation of sustainable strategies for quality production of key crops.

Have you partnered with any grower associations, cooperatives or other influencer groups to expand reach for biologicals?

From the inception of G4TF we have partnered with major producer cooperatives, private companies and grower associations such as AVA-ASAJA, PROEXPORT, COARVAL and COEXPHAL and GRANADA LA PALMA in Spain. This was part of our approach to understanding the needs of growers and the pressures and challenges they faced from the value chain. Those collaborations have been extremely valuable in the development of our programmes and in reinforcing our approach to the provision of crop protection solutions that are needed to help growers produce sustainably and profitably. They have also enabled us to confirm the practical value of our solutions at first hand in terms of environmental impact¹ and grower profitability² from the production of high quality and safe food.

Can you share any successful cases of growers who have seen significant benefits from using your biological crop solutions?

A good example of success has been the integration of biological and conventional crop solutions to produce strawberries in the south of Spain, under the umbrella of the ″Growing For The Future″ project to achieve our goals of sustainable agriculture and high-quality production.

Our integrated production programmes are based on the combination of biorational products of natural origin and conventional plant protection products. For many years we have also integrated this combination with the release of beneficial insects in protected crops, or the use of vegetation covers that favour the development of auxiliary fauna in the open field. The G4TF integrated production programmes also encompass the use of mating disruption pheromone-based products and mass trapping systems with attractants and pheromones, which help us reduce insect pest populations, thus facilitating the reduction of insecticide use.

In the 2023-2024 campaign, we have conducted further G4TF trials in strawberry, in Palos de la Frontera, Huelva. The trial was carried out on the Rociera variety. This variety represents 13.5% of the total strawberry plantation in this campaign and represents the second most important variety in the area in the province of Huelva. In this G4TF project, we have evaluated the comparison between an IPM programme with G4TF protocol and a standard IPM programme (with conventional products) commonly used by the grower. 

(Source: Certis Belchim)

Results

1 Effectiveness against pests and diseases

The results were very positive overall and beneficial for strawberry growers in the region. In the G4TF trial programme the main pests of the crop, red spider mite (Tetranychus urticae) and Thrips (Frankliniella occidentalis and Scirtothrips aurantii), 

as well as the two key diseases of strawberry cultivation in Huelva, powdery mildew (Podosphaera aphanis) and Botrytis (Botrytis cinerea) were controlled with similar efficacy to the grower's standard IPM programme. Botrytis was the exception and the IPM G4TF programme resulted in a significantly lower incidence of this disease than the standard plot. 

% Incidence of Botrytis (Botrytis cinerea)

2. Reduction in the number of treatments with conventional plant protection products

Thanks to the number of Biorational products registered and used by Certis Belchim in this crop, the G4TF programme achieved a 50% reduction in the use of conventional phytosanitary products, compared to those used in the grower's standard programme. In addition, the reduction of conventional treatments, made possible by substitution with Biorational treatments, will enable the grower to respect label restrictions, since most phytosanitary products now carry significant restrictions on the number of treatments allowed.

3. Reduction of residues in G4TF vs Standard fruits 

One of the key objectives for strawberry growers is to minimize and reduce the presence of chemical residues in fruit and the G4TF IPM project clearly achieves this. The results obtained and measured through multi-residue analyses have shown that strawberries in the G4TF plot were harvested without residues compared to the presence in those from the grower's plot of two molecules of chemical synthesis during the March harvest and up to five active substances in the harvest carried out on April 18. Although residues in all fruit were below the Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) authorized in strawberries, it is significant that no residues at all were detected in fruit from the plots treated with Certis Belchim's G4TF IPM programme. This demonstrates the clear contribution of Biorationals in the G4TF programme to achieve the reduction of fruit residues.

Sum of the number of residues in fruit

4. Reduction of the Environmental Impact Coefficient (EIQ) G4TF vs Standard

In addition, in part due to the reduction of conventional phytosanitary products used by the G4TF programme, the trials showed a 99% reduction of the EIQ compared to the standard grower's programme, confirming the contribution of the G4TF project to sustainability in agriculture.

Environmental Impact Coefficient (EIQ)

5. Profitability for the grower (improvement in quality and production)

The parameters of quality and production of the fruit were satisfactory and over three harvest valuations (carried out on 26 February 2024, 1 March 2024 and 4 March 2024), gave a total of 9.15kg per experimental plot in the standard programme and 12.43kg in the G4TF programme. The first assessment showed an early harvest in the G4TF plot with a total increase in production of 35.8% for the dates indicated. The trial was completed in mid-May, obtaining good control of pests and diseases throughout the crop cycle. The last harvest was carried out at the end of March and gave a cumulative increase in production of 2.044 kg per hectare, in favour of the G4TF plot.

Much of this success comes from the strategy implemented in the soil, with Biorational products such as Valcure (strain D-747) and biostimulants via HYT-A irrigation (nitrogen fixer, phosphorus solubilization and potassium mobilization) and foliar irrigation with C-Bio Grow (Ascophyllum nodosun) and Proactive K.

Conclusions

We are therefore delighted that strawberry growers can, with confidence, benefit from using the G4TF IPM programme, which compares well with the standard programme in terms of efficacy in controlling major pests and diseases, reduces their use of synthetic chemicals by 50% and produces residue-free fruit, whilst also reducing the environmental impact of their production and increasing satisfaction in the quality and yield of their crop.

Certis Belchim G4TF IPM programmes have been developed for a variety of other crops now and can be used with confidence by farmers and growers to achieve similar benefits.

¹ The Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ) was devised to determine the environmental impact of the most-used pesticides (insecticides, fungicides and herbicides) in agriculture and horticulture. The assessment protocol, developed by Cornell University to determine an environmental coefficient, showed significant reductions achieved by G4TF programmes compared to grower standards e.g. a reduction of up to 84% in crops such as strawberries by following G4TF programmes

² Grower information on yields, quality and prices was shared with Certis Belchim for calculation purposes.