The Need for Pest Control and the Possibilities of Pesticide Development in Accordance with the Requirements of Safe Food Production

The scientific and technical development that made the industrial revolution possible not only transformed the social structure worldwide, but also imposed new requirements on food production and necessitated changes in plant cultivation procedures. Within this, pest control management underwent a radical change in the last century, and the use of pesticides (synthetic chemicals) became widespread. The main reason for this is the maintenance of the profitability of the production by guaranteeing the reliability of the harvest. This latter aspect usually is not taken into the account by those who oppose the use of pesticides. In the past half century, the pesticide assortment has undergone significant changes, currently around 2000 different active ingredients are available, among which the proportion of synthetic super selective molecules has increased. Although this contributed to the reduction of concerns about their use, the widespread application of these mono site inhibitors imposed new requirements. On the one hand due to the acquired resistance against them within the pest population, and on the other hand due to the appearance of new, previously insignificant pest species. Among them, the phytopathogenic bacteria are of increasing importance: we currently do not have a sufficiently effective preparation that can be used to control them widely in plant cultivation. There is an urgent need to develop pesticides suitable for combating newly emerging diseases. In this paper, the author examined this question from the inventor’s point of view, sharing the experiences of six decades of research in this area.