BIOINSECTICIDES AND POSSIBILITIES OF APPLICATION IN THE CONTROL OF PEST INSECTS

Abstract

The most important branch of the economy is agriculture, the primary goal of which is to produce food
that is of good quality and safe for health. With the modernization of society on a global scale, agriculture has
managed to produce enough food for the accelerated population growth, which has led to environmental
transformation and increasingly intensive exploitation of both renewable and non-renewable natural resources. All
this resulted in the excessive and often uncontrolled application of chemical plant protection agents. Sustainable
production is a safe, ecologically and health-safe way of producing food, in accordance with natural principles,
without the use of agrochemicals and GMO organisms that can lead to serious consequences for the environment
and the health of people and other living beings. The meaning of sustainable agriculture is the search for
"ecological" solutions, while accepting and correcting the good measures of intensive agriculture. Also, sustainable
agriculture is not a return to the old ways, that is, to the agriculture that our ancestors practiced, but on the contrary,
it is part of modern agricultural production, trade and agronomic science, which is based on its latest knowledge and
achievements. In order to protect the environment, the application of ecologically acceptable methods of plant
protection, which are based on the reduced use of standard chemical agents, and the intensification of preventive
protection measures and the latest methods of biological measures, is particularly important. Biopesticides represent
one of the most significant discoveries of biotechnology, the use of which achieves healthy food production and the
reduction of environmental pollution. These are biological preparations for protecting plants from insects, diseases
and weeds. The active substance of these preparations is a living organism or the products of its activities. Among
biopesticides, bioinsecticides are the most common. Given the intensive conventional agricultural production, which
is the most prevalent, as well as unpredictable and uncontrolled climate changes, the conditions for the appearance
and sudden increase in the number of insects harmful to agriculture are being created. Their negative impact is
reflected in low-quality, reduced yields, and the production of bad products, which implies that insects are an
undesirable and threatening element in plant production. On the other hand, the uncontrolled and inadequate
application of synthetic pesticides affects the creation of negative side effects, which implied accelerated research
and development of bioinsecticides. Bioinsecticides consist of natural substances, from various sources, with the
help of which harmful insects are controlled, and are classified into: biochemical insecticides and their derivatives,
protective agents built into plants and microbial bioinsecticides. Ideal bioinsecticides should have low toxicity, be
easily degraded during wastewater treatment and in the natural environment, be highly effective in small quantities,
and affect only the target pests. However, the problem of the production of bioinsecticides is the high financial costs,
the shelf life of the preparation, which is extremely short, as well as the need for further research, given that the
mechanisms of action are not fully defined. This paper provides an overview of current successes in the research and
production of biopesticides, as well as an overview of the current limitations that prevent the widespread use of
bioinsecticides and suggests future research directions.