For many people in America and Europe, 1967 was the summer of love. For Dutch cucumber grower Jan Koppert a nagging headache from the pesticide sprays he used in production left him facing a quandary: ditch the pesticides and risk a pest invasion, or put up with the pain.
Showing a touch of early entrepreneurial flare, he chose neither. Having seen local flower growers using mites to combat pests on their plants, Koppert introduced the simple idea into cucumber production after a trip to Switzerland in search of solutions. Alongside his son Peter, he began supplying the predatory mite Phytoseiulus persimilis to fellow growers. “There was no email or internet back in those days,” says Peter Maes, director of corporate marketing. “When he went to Switzerland he didn’t know the language or anybody there, but he went over there for a solution. In my opinion that’s entrepreneurship.”
Today Koppert has branched out into a multi-faceted biological agri-tech company, offering pollination, pest control and even smart-farming apps across the world. Annual average 12 per cent growth since 1967, particularly pronounced since 2005, has seen the company spread from the lowlands of Rotterdam across the globe. It now keeps offices in 30 countries, and since 2012 has reached out of the glasshouse into row crops. Since 2011 its turnover doubled to €200 million.
The company classifies its work into three fields – Macrobials, Microbials and Pollination. Macrobials designates the “larger” products which are barely visible mites like Swirskii, spidex and spical mites, all measuring less than a millimetre, as well as micro wasps like Aphiphar, which kills aphids.
In 2005 it began ‘microbial’ work, developing bacterial and microscopic pest control mechanisms better suited to large-scale farming in countries like Brazil. Its new microbe facilities boast a 20,000 litre, high-pressure steel vat to produce commercial quantities of bacteria for delivery.
One of the company’s best-known products is Natupol, or better described as a ‘bee box’. Designed to pollinate crops, Koppert literally hand breeds thousands of queen bees every year from a special facility in the middle of Slovakia, which are then packaged and sent to growers across Europe.
In the UK, some of the country’s largest producers use Koppert products including Thanet Earth, Suncrop Growers, Angus Soft Fruits as well as S&A Produce, to name a few, to pollinate their tomatoes and soft-fruit crops.
Right Place Right Time?
Despite Koppert’s success, a common assumption about the future of agriculture is that it will inexorably move towards synthetic pesticides in order to match a rapidly growing population. Arguments still rage as to whether organic yield rates can adequately do the job of sating a larger population.
“We already know bio-pesticides can feed the world, the challenge is getting farmers to believe that,” states Maes. The latest global population estimates have been revised upwards to around a peak 10 billion by 2030.
“When you talk to retailers, they tell us that organics is the fastest-growing development. The future lies in the combination of food and health, and that’s how you build resilient societies.”
Expanding organic consumption globally, with soaring sales in the UK, France and the US, to name a few countries, backs up Maes’ claim. He says a growing demand for residue-free produce in tandem with environmental legislation will provide the right arena for Koppert to grow.
Battling paperwork
Legislation has proven tricky terrain however. Even for a company of Koppert’s size the route to commercial certification is long and hard. “We believe regulation pressure will increase over the next couple of years,” says Koppert’s regulatory affairs manager Evert Hamblok. The flowchart of accreditation is too complicated to reproduce outside the boardroom. In short, applications for products take eight years in the EU, which is “way too long” according to Hamblok. He compares it to the USA, where applications can take only a couple of years.
“In Europe everything is hazardous until proven safe. In the US everything is safe until proven hazardous,” Hamblok laments. Furthermore, American applications can require as little as two points of contact, in contrast to Europe’s 28 member states.
If the ponderous timeframe is one grievance, Hamblok also expresses frustration that regulators in Europe tend to have chemistry backgrounds, despite assessing what are biological products. “They have to get a better feeling about how to assess the risk of bio-pesticides. That’s what is really hampering us, people with a different background assessing our products.”
Hamblok wants an overhaul of the current European accreditation process, learning from America to reduce timeframes, with fewer data requirements and appropriate experts making the assessments. Despite being buoyed by the growing popularity of organic produce, Hamblok says a company of Koppert’s size is not able to influence wider opinion for change. “It’s impossible for companies like Koppert to change mindsets, and why should it be on us when we know our products are safe?”
Going forward, Koppert is aiming to position itself at the centre of what it has christened “integrated pest and disease management”. Its method would see it provide bio-pesticides, with application tools, using new smart tech methods. Drones, robotics, and monitoring apps all linked by a smart phone, with software design, will start to form an increasing part of an enterprise that began as one man’s solution for a headache.
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