Managing pest resistance to Bacillus thuringiensis endotoxins: constraints and incentives to implementation

Technological advances in combination with societal concerns over the potential for adverse health and environmental effects of chemical pesticides are operating to increase the use of Bacillus thuringiensis endotoxins in crop protection. Accompanying this increased use will be an increase in the intensity of selection for endotoxin resistance in a number of important pest species. To preserve the value of B. thuringiensis endotoxins in crop protection, it will be necessary to implement resistance management measures. This article analyzes the roles of pest control crises, societal values, level of awareness about resistance and resistance management, political action, economic considerations, competing technologies and products, and the difficulty of assessing the success of resistance management as constraints and incentives for the implementation of resistance management by the B. thuringiensis industry and by end users of B. thuringiensis products. Based on this analysis and a consideration of the attributes of new technologies that favor their ready adoption, we concluded that individual farmers have limited incentive to adopt resistance management technologies for B. thuringiensis endotoxins, and that the greatest incentive lies with the B. thuringiensis industry. However, the implementation of a coordinated, industry-wide, B. thuringiensis resistance management effort is likely to be constrained by competition among segments of the B. thuringiensis industry vested in different technologies (sprays versus transgenic plants) and among producers of B. thuringiensis products using the same technology. It is further concluded that successful implementation of resistance management for B. thuringiensis endotoxins will likely require that the B. thuringiensis industry prepackage resistance management technologies with their products, and that these prepackaged resistance management strategies do not add significantly to the costs or complexity of pest control