Vol. 8, Issue 7 (2019)

In India, the first report of pesticide poisoning was documented from Kerala in 1958, where more than 100 people died after consuming wheat flour contaminated with parathion. One instance occurred in Bhopal, where more than 5,000 deaths resulted from exposure to accidental emissions of methyl isocyanate from a pesticide factory (Kumar et al., 2013).

Biopesticides or biological pesticides offer an ecologically sound and effective solution to pest problems. According to United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Biopesticides are certain types of pesticides derived from natural materials such as animals, plants, bacteria and certain minerals. Thus, Microbial Pesticides, Biochemical pesticides, Plant-Incorporated Protectants (PIPs) and beneficial insects comes under the Biopesticides (Osman et al., 2015)

The global Biopesticide market is anticipated to raise in the coming years due to high demand for ecofriendly agricultural treatment products. Governments of various regions are implementing rules to adopt ecofriendly products for agriculture. The rise in trend for organic food is also leading to the rise of global Biopesticide market (Kumar and Singh, 2015).

Biopesticides are an important tool for managing the increasing concern over pesticide residues in food and problem of pest resistance against chemical pesticides. Therefore, adoption of Biopesticides for crop protection is increasing in demand so as to discourage chemical pesticides that harm ecology and human and animal health.