ISCA’s collaboration with Brazilian ag giant covered in prominent business journal
insect controls. Photo by ISCA, Inc.
ISCA, Inc.’s collaboration with the world’s largest private soybean grower is the talk of Brazil’s business community.
The partnership between ISCA and the Brazilian agriculture giant Bom Futuro received significant coverage in Valor Econômico, a leading business news journal in Brazil.
The article explains how ISCA’s subsidiary in Brazil, ISCA Tecnologias, Inc., and Bom Futuro have agreed to build a farm-based research center to develop environmentally safe insect controls for soybean, corn, and cotton crops that rely on pheromones and other safe, naturally occurring semiochemical compounds as active ingredients.
“In a note, Bom Futuro reported that it is necessary to reduce the application of chemical pesticides to combat pests. . .especially to preserve the sustainability of production, hence its interest in the (ISCA) partnership,” wrote Valor Econômico reporter Fernando Lopes.
The Center for Excellence of Semiochemicals for Large Cultures is under construction at Bom Futuro’s Filadélfia Farm in the heart of Brazil’s agricultural Cerrado region in the Mato Grosso state. Its purpose is to accelerate the development and testing of ISCA’s insect controls that protect soybean, corn, and cotton crops from the fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda, and other damaging insect species without harming the environment.
Lopes’ article details how ISCA has made several advances in pheromone insect controls since the company was founded in 1996. These advances include the use of a biodegradable paste formulation that can be applied efficiently over large areas by aircraft and tractors. This and other ISCA advances are allowing pheromone controls to move from just protecting smaller fruit orchards to also protecting large acreages of corn, soybean, cotton, and other row crops, said the article.
“Through the partnership with the Mato Grosso group, 60 million hectares planted with soy, corn, and cotton in Brazil definitely came into the focus of ISCA,” Lopes wrote.
Note: The quotes from Valor Econômico were translated from Portuguese.