20
Mar
“Biopesticides” Critiqued as Poorly Defined and Regulated, Challenging Safety Assumptions and Use
(Beyond Pesticides, March 20, 2026) Biopesticides represent a kind of Utopian destination in the landscape of agricultural sustainability. If only they could ensure planetary harmony. A review of botanical biopesticides in the March 11 issue of Toxics raises important questions that require scrutiny and review under the pesticide registration process and when used in organic systems under the Organic Foods Production Act. The term biopesticide can be misleading, and any replacements for synthetic pesticides cannot be taken only on faith. As Beyond Pesticides has noted previously, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) definition of biopesticides—“derived from such natural materials as animals, plants, bacteria, and certain minerals”—is broad, vague, and used differently by different interests. EPA regulates biopesticides under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) in three categories: Substances that interfere with mating, such as insect sex pheromones, as well as various scented plant extracts that attract insect pests to traps; Microbial pesticides consisting of a microorganism (e.g., a bacterium, fungus, virus, or protozoan) as the active ingredient; and Plant-Incorporated-Protectants (PIPs), pesticidal substances that plants are genetically engineered to produce. The review by Sandra Petrovic, PhD, and Andreja Leskovac, PhD, of the University of Belgrade, highlights the need not to […]
