EUROPEAN-SEED.COM I EUROPEAN SEED I 7 pound named Salvarsan, invented in 1907, led to the develop- ment of organic mercury compounds; these substances were used extremely successfully to disinfectant seeds from disease. Zadoks and Waibeu add that the creation of organic pesticides, beginning with DDT, were “widely applied during World War II for control of malaria and typhus,” and after World War II came the creation of more crop protection products such as carbendazim. MODERN INDUSTRY CHANGES In general, Carroll notes that nowadays farmers have access to a much wider variety of crop protection tools, including state-of- the-art pesticides, advanced data analytics and precision tech- nologies. “New technologies have improved profiles – biologically and environmentally,” agrees Dan Turner, media relations lead at Dow/DuPont.  However, because so much biochemistry exploration has been done, a need has developed to cast a much wider ‘net’ in the creation of new products, notes Dr. Rainer Preuss, Vice President of Global Strategy & Portfolio Management at BASF Crop Protection. Indeed, the average number of new molecules currently researched in the eventual registration of one new crop protection product has almost tripled from 52,000 in 1995 to 160,000 today. Surman explains that whilst this is due to an increasing difficulty in finding new product leads, it also reflects increased screening of product candidates. “The screening pro- cess is better able to consider properties, such as human and eco toxicity, early in the process,” he notes, “which ensures only the development of products that meet strict regulatory stand- ards.” Preuss adds that according to a recent study by research firm Phillips McDougall, the average lead time between the first synthesis of a new crop protection molecule and its subsequent commercial introduction has also increased. All these factors have resulted in higher product develop- ment costs. Again, Preuss quotes the Phillips McDougall study that finds overall costs of developing a new product have risen from $152 million USD (€115m) around 1995 to $286 million USD (€215m) in the period of 2010 to 2014. Surman adds that “since the turn of the century, the crop protection industry has increased its spending on crop protection product safety testing by 118 per cent. The crop protection industry spends an aver- age of $71 million on toxicology and environmental chemistry tests for every single crop protection product that is brought to market to ensure human and environmental health and safety.” Preuss adds that apart from medicines, plant protection prod- ucts are the most thoroughly scrutinized substances on the planet. “About 800 requirements need to be addressed and more than 200 studies are filed for a registration, and sale without approval from national authorities (registration) is not possi- ble,” he notes. “A modern crop protection product must show very reliable action, be well-tolerated by cultivated and bene- ficial organisms (selectivity), and have favourable toxicological properties. Furthermore, it must rapidly degrade with adequate duration of action, it needs to have a user-friendly formulation and added value for producers and users.” “With these costs, scale for innovation is extremely impor- tant,” notes Camilla Corsi, head of crop protection research at Syngenta. “The market will remain extremely competitive. The major players will be more efficient, investment will be supported and R&D will continue. We fully expect to also see Bean plants being transported for automated spray application. (Photo submitted by Syngenta.) Chemist monitoring automated purification system. (Photo submitted by Syngenta.)