Before we can get into trying to know whether biological pest control is the reply to the pest-control related environmental issues, it would be appropriate to give ourselves some background information on this whole pest control business; for the sake of those who might be encountering it for the very first time.

Now, pests are organisms (typically insects) that are injurious to the interests of the men and women who refer to them as such. Thus to farmers, the pests that invade and consume their plants (if in the areas or during storage), could be termed as pests. On the flip side, the'domestic insects' that often mess up with items in domestic settings (such as moths, which can mess up with materials in storage), are viewed as pests by housekeepers. Worth keeping in mind is that even though most insects are insects, there are also quite are variety that are non-insects: with the likes of rodents (which can mess up with crops in farms of items stored in domestic preferences ) being seen as pests also, the fact that they are not insects notwithstanding.

Having seen that pests are benign, it would be normal that the men and women who happen to'fall victim' to them might want to eliminate them. Meanwhile, those who have not yet fallen victim to pests would be keen to avoid this type of'fate.' Hosting pests, incidentally, can be a critical fate: thousands of hectares of farmland have been proven to be wasted by fleas in a single day, leading to losses which often encounter hundreds of dollars. It is the steps required to prevent pest invasion then, or to solve pest invasion if it's taken place, that are referred to as constituting pest control.

Now pest control takes various kinds, depending upon the pests you is hoping to do away with (or to protect against the invasion of). And while larger pests like rodents may be controlled through mechanical methods for example trapping, for a very long period of time, it's chemical control that has worked for the huge majority of pests, which tend to be insects as previous mentioned. The compounds used in this endeavor are what are termed as pesticides. And while pesticides are normally quite effective in pest-control, the downside to them tends to come up when we consider the simple fact that they tend to be extremely environmentally friendly. Worth keeping in mind, at this time, is the simple fact that the chemicals referred to as pesticides tend to be very potent ones. So often it happens that traces of them stay where they were used, even following the bugs are gone. Those traces are washed down to the water bodies where they wreck great havoc to the (non pest) plants and animals resident in the water bodies.

It's concern about this environmental impact of chemical pest-control that resulted in questions regarding whether a more environmentally friendly friend way of controlling pests couldn't be developed. The end result was the exploration of options like the insect control, which we're trying to check whether it is really the answer to issues raised about (chemical- based) pest control.

In biological pest-control, it's other organisms which are known to be predators into the ones viewed as pest which are unleashed upon the said pests; eating up them and therefore resolving the pest problem. Thus if the troublesome pests are aphids, another organisms that are known to feed on aphids are introduced into the field where the problem is, to feed on the aphids, rather than spraying an environmentally unfriendly chemical.

The problem with biological pest-control, however, is that it tends to be of questionable efficacy. While chemical pest control tends to be thorough, leaving no bugs or even traces of these, in biological pest control, that can't quite be ensured. Implementing biological pest management on a large scale basis (for instance on a thousand hectare plantation) may also prove to be a herculean task. Ultimately, it's considerations like these that make us keep on thinking of more environmentally friendly pest control approaches. That is because biological insect control, while definitely being a strategy that addresses the environmental concerns raised about chemical pest control, it doesn't seem to be efficient (or scalable) sufficient, in the majority of people people's view.