The Agricultural Chemicals Regulation Law defines “agricultural chemicals” as chemical agents such as fungicides and insecticides that are used to control crop-harming organisms. Agricultural chemicals can be divided into chemical pesticide and biopesticide according to the source of technical material. Chemical pesticide mainly include insecticide, herbicide, bactericide, etc, while biopesticides are certain types of pesticides derived from such natural materials as animals, plants, bacteria, and certain minerals.

The chemical pesticides have seen a steady growth from 2010 to 2017 despite a slight decrease in 2015. In 2010, China's chemical pesticide sales volume was 135.32 billion Yuan and in 2017, the figure was doubled and reached 288.52 billion Yuan.

Compared with chemical pesticides, biopesticides are more effective, non-toxic and eco-friendly, so they also have steady growth in recent years. Biopesticides sales volume has reached 31.93 billion Yuan in 2017, increasing by 5.7% from 2016.

According to data from Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, there are 38,680 registered agricultural chemicals, including 16,556 insecticides, 10,180 bactericides and 10,171 herbicides , which account for 42.8%, 26.32% and 26.30% respectively.

Even though agricultural chemical market are mainly dominated by chemical pesticides, biopesticides are facing a good opportunity to develop with the strengthening of ecological environmental supervision.