Bacillus thuringiensis as Potential Biocontrol Agent for Sustainable Agriculture

Abstract

The global agricultural production needs to go up by 70% until 2050, to keep pace with ever-increasing human population and is a major challenge of this century. Green revolution and heavy use of chemical pesticides have helped to achieve feeding objective in the past few decades by developing high-yielding cultivars and reducing yield losses due to weeds, pests, and diseases. The use of biocontrol agents is almost a century-old concept in agriculture, but their applications were limited due to the development of highly effective chemical pesticides in the past half a dozen decades. However, chemical insecticides have prolonged leaching residual effects, leading to environmental damages and adverse effects on other organisms involved in the biogeochemical cycle. Besides, excessive use of chemical pesticides generates tolerance in pests. Therefore, safer pest management options are required to preserve environmental sustainability. The use of biocontrol agents with specificity in their targets is one of the widespread pest control approaches in plant health management. Recently, increased demand for biocontrol agents is mainly the result of the changed perception of human–society preferring a healthy environment and safety over the effectiveness with harmful side effects. Most successful of all the biocontrol agents, Bacillus thuringiensis and its potential as a biocontrol agent, is discussed in this chapter.