How come the more pesticides are sprayed, the less effective they are? What if the drug resistance of diseases and insect pests is serious? Experts teach you how to use medicine wisely.

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Farmers often have a feeling that a certain pesticide is supposed to be very useful, but how can it become more and more ineffective? The answer may be that "drug resistance" has emerged. Serious drug resistance of pests such as red spiders (spider mites) and diamondback moth has been found in domestic fields. in recent years, the Prevention and Inspection Bureau of the Council of Agriculture, the competent authority, has begun to focus on "drug resistance management," advocating that farmers should use drugs wisely to avoid the occurrence of drug resistance and reduce costs.

The Entomology Department of National Taiwan University held a seminar on drug resistance management strategies in Yunlin Branch of National Taiwan University on May 3 and 4, inviting experts to share the research results and attract industry officials to participate in exchanges. Feng Haidong, director of the Bureau of Prevention and Inspection, made it clear at the beginning of the introduction that the chairman shouted the slogan of halving pesticides in ten years, "as long as you use drugs wisely, you can reduce the use of pesticides, but you can achieve the same effect." at the same time, it can also enable these pesticides to maintain good control effects.

Otherwise, excessive or misuse of drugs will lead to drug resistance and uncontrollable pests. "it will not only cause loss of production, but also many other risks, including health risks to consumers, harm to other members of the environment such as bees and earthworms, and finally risks to traders." for example, the failure of mango to go to South Korea last year is a trade barrier caused by the use of pesticides.

After the use of pesticides, non-drug-resistant blue pests are eliminated, leaving behind drug-resistant red pests; after repeated use of the same pesticide, the population will be composed entirely of red drug-resistant pests. Photo Source: guidelines for the Management of Pesticide Resistance.

Drug resistance leads to the loss of credit and profits of pesticide companies, but it is difficult to manage.

Since there are many actual cases of drug resistance in the field, should this information be made known to farmers so as not to continue to buy ineffective drugs, waste money and damage ecology and affect their own health?

Lin Guanhua, a researcher at Dao Li's Pingtung Agricultural Experimental Station, points out that "this piece of information is very scarce." he believes that a basic framework should be established to collect drug resistance in the field through various sources and channels of information. for example, pesticide companies can also receive complaints from farmers about which drugs are ineffective, and they do not have to publish information published in formal academic journals. I hope that industry and government circles should be integrated.

Drug resistance can easily lead to increased use of drugs by farmers. What is the attitude of pesticide companies towards this? Several pesticide manufacturers on the spot admitted that at present, pesticide companies are limited in monitoring their own drug resistance. However, Chang Hsien-Yi, manager of Taiwan's Sumitomo Chemical Company, says, "the investigation of drug resistance is beneficial to us." Manufacturers also hope to give this information to farmers, otherwise, if farmers spend unjustified money to buy drugs that are ineffective, "they think that your medicine is not good enough, so that farmers will not use it in the future," and it will also damage the company's credit and reputation.

Lin Wen-Yi, product development manager at Bayer in Taiwan, also added that for multinational manufacturers, the position is the same as that of farmers, and they do not want drug resistance to arise. Because it costs 10 billion yuan to develop a new pesticide, and it takes another five years to register in Taiwan, we certainly don't want the new drug to be ineffective soon. Pesticide companies are useful drug guidelines, "the problem is how to convey the correct knowledge to grass-roots farmers, the relevant demonstration needs to be strengthened."

The KGB is a gory example of failure due to drug resistance. Xu Rujun said that the KGB was a very effective drug in 2010 and expired in 2013, using it for less than three years.

Experts say that drug resistance management is related to how long the sales period of pesticide products can last, and will affect the interests of pesticide companies, so multinational companies or protoplast development companies will attach great importance to drug resistance management, but they will enter the Red Sea market after an eight-year patent term. Many companies can produce, but not every company is willing to do drug resistance management. If A does not sell B, it will suffer losses for those who do not sell it.

Lin Wen-Yi, for example, a few years ago, the company wanted to carry out drug resistance management, and farmers took all the goods back from the pesticide store as soon as they were in use. "but later, they were scolded half to death by farmers, so did the snack shop, and there was a lot of smuggling outside."

Prevention and Inspection Bureau: the mechanism of action is about to be bid, and pesticides are the last choice for prevention and control.

The Bureau of Prevention and Inspection also expects to put the classification label of the mechanism of action on the pesticide label to strengthen the management of drug resistance. Feng Haidong said that the regulations will be announced in advance this year. He also stressed once again that "pesticides are not the only option and should be ranked third." there are at least two approaches in front of them: one is to reduce the occurrence of pests from the management side, and the other is to find out whether non-chemical pesticide control techniques are available. In the end, if you have no choice but to use drugs, you have to find products that are low-risk and safe and use them correctly in order to reduce the incidence of drug resistance and reduce risks in products, the human body, and the environment.

Note: please click here to search the classification and action mechanism of agricultural pharmaceuticals

Reference:

Guidelines for the Management of Pesticide Resistance: https://www.baphiq.gov.tw/files/web_articles_files/baphiq/16344/15763.pdf

Prevention and Inspection Bureau "crop pest resistance zone": https://www.baphiq.gov.tw/view.php?catid=16343

Action Committee on Pesticide Resistance: http://www.irac-online.org/

Action Committee on Fungicides Resistance http://www.frac.info/

Action Committee on herbicide Resistance http://www.hracglobal.com/

Action Committee on rodenticide Resistance http://www.rrac.info/

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