1. Introduction
China is a country with many agricultural pests. According to statistics from the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture (2007), the area of pest infestation during 1990–2000 was about 300 million hectares per year and the annual loss of food crops destroyed by pests was over 15 billion kilograms, even though various measures of control were applied. During this time, pest control was mainly dependent on chemical pesticides, and the yearly total amount applied was as high as 250,000 tons of active ingredient (Qiu, 2005). Owing to ever-increasing problems of environmental pollution and food safety caused by chemical pesticides, the Chinese government recently provided more support to the development of an environmental friendly strategy of biological control. As a result, China has made very significant progress in developing microbial control programs.
2. Current status of microbial control
According to statistics produced by the Institute for the Control of Agrochemicals in the Ministry of Agriculture, more than 300 microbial insecticide products have been registered in China (Table 2).