Increasing demand for low calorie sweeteners from food and beverages manufacturers have been increased from last few years, owing to the rising concern over obesity and diabetes across the world. Many key players in beverages are introducing the products with natural low-calorie sweeteners mainly stevia.  For instance, in 2018, Coca-Cola launched Coke “Coca-Cola Life” sweetened with 100% stevia in New Zealand. The company is also planning to introduce this product in the South Pacific region in upcoming years.  Increasingly, consumers from developed economies such as the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom are inclined toward low-sugar fruits and vegetable juices, which is driving the demand of stevia for beverages application.

The number of pests in different crops across the world is rising, and there is a tremendous increase in the number of insecticide-resistant pests. Insecticides can be used to control a variety of pests, however, overtime, they loose their effectiveness, as pests develop resistance, a significant decrease in sensitivity to a pesticide, which reduces the field performance of the pesticides. Reliance on insecticide-based pest management of insect pests often leads to the development of insecticide resistance. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is working on slowing and combating pests’ resistance to pesticides. These pests have caused enormous loss with regard to many economically important crops and have forced farmers to rely more on the usage of chemicals. Farmers are applying higher quantity of the same insecticides to kill crop pests, which has lead to pesticide resistance in the field. With each application, a few pests survive, who pass on their genes to their offspring. Eventually, the pesticide stops killing pests, leading to crop damage, which leads to demand of more investment in the R&D and new formulations of insecticides in the market. According to an International Survey of 2017, by Issac and McManus, currently, there are 500 cases of pesticide resistance and 200 cases of insecticide resistance, worldwide.