10 November 2026, Jaguariúna: The area of Brazilian farmland treated with Bacillus-based biological pesticides grew 391 percent between 2020 and 2025, reaching 37.2 million hectares, according to a study led by researchers at Embrapa Meio Ambiente, the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) and the market research firm Kynetec Brasil.
The study, published in the Brazilian Journal of Microbiology in late September, found that revenue from Bacillus-based products rose from roughly 114.3 million dollars in 2020 to about 403.2 million dollars in 2025, an increase of around 252 percent. Bacillus products now account for 43 percent of the total area treated with any biological control agent in Brazil, up from 34 percent in 2020, and make up 47 percent of biological control sales by value, up from 42 percent over the same period. Total biological control sales across all agents reached roughly 855.7 million dollars in the 2024 and 2025 season, applied across close to 86.9 million hectares of potential treated area nationwide. The figures are drawn from a recurring Kynetec market survey covering about 16,000 farmer interviews per season, with just over 15,700 interviews in the most recent round.
As of December 2025, Brazil had 297 commercial Bacillus-based products registered across 42 companies, built from 126 distinct bacterial strains. Embrapa researcher Wagner Bettiol, one of the study’s authors, said the growth in the category had been continuous rather than driven by a single product cycle, with treated area expanding 35 percent in the most recent season alone. Co-author Roberto Lanna-Filho of UFRGS noted that the bacteria produce a range of metabolites that act against fungi, bacteria and nematodes through several distinct mechanisms, including direct antagonism, competition for nutrients and space, disruption of pathogen signaling, and triggering of a plant’s own natural defenses.
Strain Diversity Underpins the Category
Three species account for the largest share of registered strains in the Brazilian market:
Bacillus amyloliquefaciens alone covers an estimated 13.87 million hectares of treated area, while Bacillus thuringiensis, used mainly for insect pest control rather than disease management, reached 4.2 million hectares. Products combining multiple Bacillus strains in a single formulation accounted for a further 5.57 million hectares.
The products are registered for use through seed treatment, in-furrow application at planting, and foliar spraying, and are used against a wide range of crop diseases and soil-borne pathogens, including root-knot nematodes, root-lesion nematodes, anthracnose, white mold, gray mold, target spot, damping-off and powdery mildew, alongside cyst nematode management. Kynetec’s Cristiano Limberger, a commercial manager and market-studies specialist at the firm, said the data reflect a steady shift among Brazilian growers toward integrating biological agents alongside conventional chemistry in disease and nematode management programs, rather than treating biologicals as a niche or experimental input category.
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