Australia

Australia is a vast island continent with a unique flora and fauna. The economy is dependent on bulk commodity exports, and agricultural exports accounted for approximately A$29 billion in 2009, or 4.6% of total exports (Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics 2010). However, the Australian pesticide market is small, estimated to be about 2-3% of the total global market for pesticides. Early experiments with microbial control included field trials in the late 1960s with the granulosis virus of codling moth in apple orchards, and in the 1970s with Elcar, the nucleopolyhedrosis virus (NPV) of Helicoverpa zea. Initial success was limited, with poor field efficacy and direct competition with new chemical insecticides. Early large scale field trials with the granulosis virus of potato tuber moth, Phthorimaea operculella, gave promising results (Reeda and Springetta 1971), but a commercial product was not registered. The number of microbial pesticides registered in Australia has increased in the last decade (Table 18), with the widescale use of Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. kurstaki (Btk). A crisis in insecticide resistance in Helicoverpa species in the late 1990s led to adoption of area-wide integrated pest management in the commercial cotton and sorghum industries, where biopesticides are used to manage resistance to chemical insecticides and to reduce secondary pest outbreaks (such as silver leaf white fly) by maintaining beneficial insect populations. Biopesticides are also used in areas of special concern such as national parks, in the expanding ‘organic’ market, and for export markets such as wine, where the industry restricts the use of synthetic insecticides (Hunter 2010)...