Growers Bugged by Pests Turn to Insects for Protection

Martha Gentry draws a certain satisfaction from knowing that the insects bent on destroying her citrus crop are meeting a truly horrific end.

Rather than spraying her 70-acre orchard near Fillmore with a noxious chemical broth, she relies on Aphytis melinus--a parasitic bug whose larvae kill pests by eating them from the inside out.

“I’m sure it isn’t a very pleasant way to go,” said Gentry, who has not used a chemical pesticide in more than 14 years. “But the real satisfaction is knowing that we’re producing a product that is 100% safe and pesticide-free.”

Although the concept of using bugs to kill bugs is about as old as civilization itself, it’s earning wider acceptance among growers as consumers and beefed-up federal regulations demand decreased use of chemical pesticides.

This has put the dozen Ventura County bug-breeding farms, or insectaries, at the forefront of a diversified and rapidly growing industry that many predict will continue to expand well into the next decade.

Gentry is a member and board president of the Fillmore Citrus Protective District, a 77-year-old cooperative that provides biological pest control to more than 250 growers in the Fillmore and Santa Paula area who till a combined 9,000 acres.

Although the cooperative does not market its products commercially, it does illustrate how biological controls can work as an effective pest treatment at a substantially reduced cost.

Where farmers in California’s Central Valley typically spend $600 to $1,000 per acre a year to apply chemical pesticides, Gentry and other cooperative members spend just $32 a year for each acre.

At present, about 40% of California growers use biological controls on all or part of their crops.

But the industry hasn’t entirely shifted to nonchemical pesticides because, in many cases, fields must be left untreated for as long as three years before predatory insects can be introduced, experts say.

In addition, climate limits the kinds of biological controls that can be introduced.

“Growers are always looking at the bottom line, so this makes sense to a lot of them,” said Monte Carpenter, manager of the Fillmore Insectary. “But there’s a lot more to this than just saving money. . . . It’s about making it too.”

The use of insects to stave off infestation dates back to the ancient Egyptians, who used predatory beetles to protect their corn and cotton crops.

In the last century, a number of local firms began harvesting insects, some imported from as far away as Australia and Pakistan, to manage common pests like black scale and white fly.

But it wasn’t until the 1970s and 1980s, when the dangers of chemical pesticides became apparent and growers began looking for alternatives, that the industry really began taking off.

That trend has continued as a public wary of harmful chemical residues increasingly demanded naturally grown foods.

According to the Organic Trade Assn., the market for organic foods has increased 25% each year for the last five years and has spawned several grocery store chains, including Whole Foods Market, that retail only pesticide-free and organically grown fruits and vegetables.

In addition, the Food Quality Protection Act has set a number of strict limits on the amount of residual pesticides that can be found in fruits and vegetables bound for market.

This legislation, passed as part of the 1996 Farm Bill, will phase out the use of several chemical pesticides over the next decade.

That eventuality has forced growers across the country and in Ventura County to begin looking for nonchemical options.

Common agricultural pests are also beginning to develop a greater resistance to pesticides, running up costs for growers forced to switch to more expensive treatments.

“I don’t think there’s much of a future in chemical pesticides, at least not in this country,” said Ron Whitehurst, marketing manager for Ventura-based insectary Rincon-Vitova. “There’s a lot of pressure on growers to change, and that’s gotten them interested in biological controls.”

Considered by many to be the father of California’s insectary industry, Rincon-Vitova annually nets about $750,000 through sales of parasitic and predatory insects that will take care of everything from aphids to white flies.

Other companies like Buena Bio Systems of Santa Paula do more than $1 million in business each year.

Biological pest control is still largely confined to large-scale agriculture, but there are a few, like Chris Gilcrest of Applied Biopest in Oxnard, who are trying to tap the highly competitive retail market.

“The industry is booming, but it’s been an absolutely knock-down, drag-out war to get any market share,” said Gilcrest, who sells products such as ladybugs to landscapers, nurseries and weekend green thumbs.

Although the market is still dominated by large pesticide producers, many are beginning to research the market and--according to Gilcrest--are fighting to secure markets.

“I think that it’s pretty obvious that [biological controls] are going to be a big-money business somewhere down the road, and those guys want to control all the distribution,” he said. “I know that I’ve had to fight for every inch in this business, and it’s probably going to get even tougher for all of us.”

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