The crop protection sector is one of the key agricultural inputs required by growers to produce crops for food, animal feed and non-food use. With the global population expected to reach 9.8 billion by 2050 and constraints on available land areas for cultivation, the need for effective crop protection agents (herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, seed treatments, nematicides) is increasingly important in sustainable agricultural production strategies.
At the same time, the sector faces significant challenges in meeting those needs. Regulation is increasingly stringent resulting in fewer products available to farmers and increased costs of innovation for the R&D based companies, while resistance to the conventional chemical-based products is a constant factor driving the need for new products.
The factors highlighted above are creating opportunities for the industry in the biological products and precision agriculture sectors, in product lifetime management and the search for novel chemical classes.
Key facts about the pesticides market
- The global crop protection market is estimated to have increased by 4.7% in 2021 to reach $65,206 million.
- The largest wave of M&A in decades reduced the top 12 companies to a new top 9 in 2018 with this new group, led by Bayer.
- Herbicides is the largest product sector, comprising 44.3% of the global crop protection market. The leading product by a large margin is glyphosate but this is now under increased regulatory pressure.
- The biological pest control segment is estimated to be around $3.3 billion and is expected to grow at a faster CAGR than the overall market going forward.
- Many of the leading companies are investing in precision agriculture and digital-farming platform technologies; these are still at early stage and the benefits are yet to be fully realized.
