Fungicide market

Table 1.3 Estimated share of world fungicide market 1995...

Horsfall (2) introduced chloranil for legume seed treatment in the late thirties. It sold for about 1.50 per pound. In 1943 Dimond et al (3) introduced the ethylenebisdithiocarbamates. These have gone on to dominate the fungicide market for agricultural crops. In 1943, 2,3-dichloro-1,4-naphthoquinone appeared in 1947, 2-heDtadecyl-2-imidazoline in 1949, 6-(l-methylheptyl)-2,4-dinitrophenyl crotonate in 1952, N-trichloromethyl thio-4-cyclohexene-l,2-dicar-boximide (captan). 

I will try to further illustrate this by going into more detail about the European cereal fungicide market and exploring challenges and the possible solutions, which can be offered using SE-technology. 

Suspoemulsions have proven to be valuable tools to formulate ready mix products of various important active ingredients. Many of these have previously not been accessible due to their contrasting physiochemical characteristics. Examples of their impact can be seen in the US com herbicide market and the European fungicide market. SB s have proven to be particularly flexible tools to enable formulators to tailor make a constantly increasing number of difficult new product combinations and adjusting their product ranges to a changing industrial environment. 

The strobilurins are an important new class of agricultural fungicides. The best examples exhibit an extremely useful spectrum of activity against many plant diseases of commercial importance. The first two products of this class, azoxystrobin and kresoxim-methyl, first sold just three years ago in April 1996, have already made a major impact on the global fungicide market. The importance of the strobilurins will increase in die years ahead as the established products are registered for use on further crops and in further territories, and as new products, currently under development, are launched. 

D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid) patented as a plant growth regulator and later as a general herbicide dithiocarbamate fungicide marketed... 

With the introduction of Be 1 complex inhibitors (Chapter 13.2) in 1996, which act on the electron transport of fungi cells, the most important new compound class called strobilurins, derived from the natural compound Strobilurin A, was introduced in the reference period to the market. Chapter 13 describes the biochemistry of oxidative phosphorylation and of the related compounds and compound classes acting at different sites, reflecting the importance of these targets for the fungicide market nowadays. At the same time it became evident that resistance development, e.g., in the compound class of strobilurins must not lead necessarily to the abandonment of the marketing, research and development of such chemistry. 

Tables 12.2-12.4 give an overview of the importance of individual modes of action and the crops or regions in which they are mostly used. The total worldwide fungicide market in 2004 has been estimated to about 7.33 billion US [4]. A few modes of action dominate the overall fungicide market (Table 12.2) ...

Table 12.2 Sales of fungicide groups as a % of total fungicide market in 2004. Mode of action classifications refer to FRAC codes as given in Tables 12.6-12.18. (Data Source Phillips McDougall 2005 (estimated total fungicide sales in 2004 US 7.33 billion).)...

Table 12.4 Fungicide market in different regions. (Data Agrowin 2004.)...

After more than 20 years of industrial research and development, strobilurins have become one of the most important classes of crop protection agents. With a distributor sales value of 1.3 billion US in 2004 [1], they currently represent approximately one-fifth of the world fungicide market (7.3 billion US in 2004 [1]). Within fungicides they rank - in commercial terms - second only to sterol biosynthesis demethylase inhibitors (DMI s), e.g. triazoles (see Chapter 17 of this book). This chapter also includes the three other Complec III inhibitors, famoxadone, fenamidone and cyazofamide, that, besides strobilurins, have achieved introduction in agricultural practice. 

At present, nine different strobilurins have been introduced into the fungicide market (see Table 13.2.1 and Fig. 13.2.2 below), and one more has been announced as being developed in China (enestroburin). There is also a strobilurin commercialized in Japan as an acaricide (fiuacrypyrim). 

Since zoxamide has a different mode of action from other products used in the Oomycete market, there is no likelihood of cross-resistance to existing products such as metalaxyl, dimethomorph, cymoxanil or strobilurins. Consequently, zoxamide provides a unique tool for resistance management in the Oomycete fungicide market. 

The most important natural products in use as commercial fungicides are illustrated in Figure 1. Individually, these are minor products, each with a narrow spectrum of activity and application predominantly on rice, vegetable and fruit outlets. Taken together, natural products now command less than 1% of the total fungicide market, which was estimated in 1991 to account for 21% of the 26.8 billion total for agrochemicals (i). The relative unimportance of natural products, when compared to their synthetic counterparts, can be attributed to a number of factors, including limitations in their spectrum of activity and, in certain instances, the onset of resistance. 

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