During a forum on the use of biocontrol agents yesterday, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Agriculture Hean Vanhan said that using biocontrol agents helps farmers to stop using chemical pesticides and can increase the efficiency of agricultural production.
Biocontrol agents are living organisms – such as insects, pathogens and grazing animals – used to depress the population of a pest, such as insects, mites, weeds and plant diseases, which can interfere with or reduce agricultural output.
The call to use biocontrol agents was made amid increasing imports of chemical and organic pesticides for agriculture due to rising demands in the agriculture sector, particularly in rice farming.
“The use of biocontrol agents is different from chemical pesticides,” Mr. Vanhan said. “The biocontrol agents will fertilize agricultural soil and protect agricultural plants.”
Mr. Vanhan called on farmers and fertilizer manufacturers to use and produce organic pesticides for agriculture, as the country’s demand for organic agricultural products is increasing. Claudius Bredehoft, national project coordinator for German development agency GIZ, said the use of biocontrol agents would push Cambodia to meet the demands for organic agricultural products.
“Biocontrol agents are helping organic farms get their organic certifications,” Mr. Bredehoft said. “Biocontrol agents are an environmentally friendly solution that uses less resources in production than chemical pesticides so it has great potential for farmers.”
Rica Joy Flor, director of the International Rice Research Institute, said that using biocontrol agents would help farmers farm sustainably.
“We understand that encouraging farmers [to use biocontrol agents] is not helping farmers change or adopt biocontrol technology – more changes are necessary from other experts, from the markets, from the policy,” she said.
However, Mr. Vanhan said using and producing local biocontrol agents was encouraged to avoid unexpected diseases in the agricultural sector which could lead to a loss of profit for farmers.
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