Much like the use of antibiotics, insecticides and insect-resistant genetically modified (GM) cotton are good tools being used badly, according to insect expert Dan Papacek.
Mr Papacek, who has been breeding 'good' bugs to kill 'bad' bugs in crops for more than 35 years, said the cotton industry had been doing a "wonderful" job of reducing its reliance on pesticides but there was a risk the technology was seen by some as a silver bullet.
"GM is an incredibly effective technology and it has helped the industry make significant reductions in pesticide use compared to say 30 years ago," he said.
"They're very good tools, but we use them dreadfully, and so we end up with all sorts of problems with resistance."
He wants to see GM integrated better with integrated pest management practices to extend the life of the technology and also to "reduce the need for constant upgrades, because insects do develop resistance".
Mr Papacek delivered the bold message to cotton growers and industry professionals at his Toowoomba insectarium on Tuesday, kicking off the biennial Cotton Collective event.
The Bugs For Bugs director and entomologist has been working with the horticulture sector and more recently the cotton industry and sees "great opportunities" in cotton.
"We've got a small parasitic wasp called trichogramma pretiosum that was developed for cotton some years ago and it's a powerful biocontrol agent for control of heliothis," he said.
"It's an egg parasitoid and it's incredibly targeted. It just lays its eggs into the eggs of the moth on the plant. I can see great opportunities to integrate more biological control into conventional cotton practices these days."
Mr Papacek and his team breed "hundreds and hundreds of millions" of insects at the Toowoomba, Mundubbera and Donnybrook facilities and post them across Australia.
Once a labour intensive job to spread them among crops, Bugs For Bugs has been teaming up with drone service providers to make the job easier.
And while it's not easy to compete with pesticides that are manufactured in large plants, often overseas, he still sees the value in bugs.
"I very rarely strive to promote our products in terms of cost saving - it's more to do with sustainable production," he said.
"All the species the team work with are either Australian natives or they're naturalised. We've got Australians working in our system here and we're reducing the need to import of some of these quite expensive compounds and reducing the need for them in the environment, which has obviously got to be a worthwhile thing."
Brandon Long
Brandon Long is a Queensland Country Life journalist based in Toowoomba.
Brandon Long is a Queensland Country Life journalist based in Toowoomba.
