sites, more than 5–10 million individuals per
species per week are produced (van Lenteren
and Woets, 1988; van Lenteren and
Tommasini, 1999), and these facilities pro-
vide the full spectrum of natural enemies
needed for an entire integrated pest manage-
ment (IPM) programme in a specific com-
modity (Albajes et al., 1999). As the sale of
biological control agents is still an emerging
market that is influenced by small competing
companies, product quality and prices are
continuously affected by competitive pres-
sure. While such pressure may in the short
term be profitable for growers due to lower
costs of natural enemies, in the long run such
price competition could lead to biological
control failures. Natural enemies were prop-
erly evaluated before commercial use some
20 years ago, but nowadays some species of
natural enemies are sold without tests under
practical cropping situations that show that
the natural enemies are effective against the
target pest (van Lenteren and Manzaroli,
1999). Lack of stability at the producer’s
level has resulted in the sale and use of nat-
ural enemies of poor quality or with inade-
quate guidance. These problems have in
some cases resulted in failure of biological
control and have influenced the develop-
ment of IPM in a very negative way.
Natural-enemy producers are a rather
diverse group. Rearing of natural enemies
can be a full-time business or a part-time
activity of growers. But natural enemies may
also be reared by companies in associated
industries, such as seed companies or pro-
ducers of fertilizers. In some cases, produc-
tion of natural enemies has been started by a
research group with governmental support
and later continued as a private endeavour.
The number of biological control agents that
are commercially available has increased
dramatically over the past 25 years (Fig. 1.1;
see also Chapter 11). Today, more than 125
natural-enemy species are on the market for
biological pest control, and about 30 of these
are produced in commercial insectaries in
very large quantities (Table 1.1). Worldwide,
there are about 85 commercial producers of
natural enemies for augmentative forms of
biological control: 25 in Europe, 20 in North
America, six in Australia and New Zealand,
five in South Africa, about 15 in Asia (Japan,
Korea, India, etc.) and about 15 in Latin
America. The worldwide turnover of natural
enemies of all producers was estimated to be
US$25 million in 1997, and about US$
million in 2000, with an annual growth of
15–20% in the coming years (K. Bolckmans,
Berkel and Rodenrijs, The Netherlands, 2001,Need for Quality Control of Biocontrol Agents 3130Number of species120
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
YearFig. 1.1.Number of species of natural enemies commercially available for biological control.