Global trends in the crop protection industry

With the world’s human population expected to reach nearly 10 billion by 2050 and the negative impact of climate change on agriculture, maintenance of a stable global food supply is under significant threat. Given these dynamics, this article outlines the current market trends in the crop protection industry, including corporate consolidations and agrochemical regulations, comments on new technologies and the situation surrounding research and development (R&D) in the industry. It also highlights how agrochemicals contribute to building a more sustainable society. 1. Environmental trends (population growth, grain demand, and climate change) According to an estimate by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the world population has reached 7.55 billion in 2017 and will reach 9.8 billion by 2050. Accompanying this growth is a demand for grain that is expected to increase at least 2.2-fold from 1970 to 2020 (2.5 billion tons). In contrast to needed increases in grain demand to parallel population growth, the amount of cultivated area in the world in 2015 was virtually the same as it was in 1965, with no rapid increase expected in the future. Therefore, combined with the predicted population growth, it appears that cultivated area per person will continue to decline worldwide. Climate change is also looming as a major threat to grain production. On the one hand, temperatures rise could extend the growing season in certain areas, and it is possible that increased carbon dioxide levels may facilitate photosynthetic carbon dioxide fixation in certain types of plants, potentially leading to increases in grain productivity. Especially in areas in the Eurasian continent and high-latitude regions of North America, increased temperatures are expected to enhance grain crop yields. Many other areas, however, are likely to witness lower grain crop yields due to the influence of climate change. Moreover, many of the areas predicted to suffer reduced crop yields are currently major grain-producing regions. This means climate change threatens to greatly affect crop production as a whole. Across the world, the loss of yield in 2050 compared to 2000 is expected to be 24% for maize, 11% for rice, and 3% for wheat.1) Open in a separate window Fig. 1. Cultivated area worldwide and per person. Source: FAOSTAT (http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#home) Consequently, it is obvious that it will not be possible to maintain the balance of supply and demand of grain down the road at current rates of grain production. In addition to the negative effects of climate change, it is unreasonable to expect a rapid expansion of cultivated area synchronously with the increasing demand for grain production that results from population growth. Under such environmental conditions, agricultural productivity per unit cultivated area must be increased to provide sufficient food to support the world’s population. Furthermore, it is imperative to use agricultural materials, including agrochemicals, more effectively than ever before and adopt innovative technological approaches to overcome these problems.