Nematicides Market (2026-2036)

In terms of volume, this market is expected to decline to 78,050.0 tonnes of active ingredient by 2036 from an estimated 96,500.0 tonnes in 2026, at a negative CAGR of 2.1% during the forecast period, implying a blended price of approximately USD 20.00 per kilogram of active ingredient in 2026 rising to approximately USD 43.82 per kilogram by 2036.

The growth of this market is mainly driven by the replacement of withdrawn fumigant and organophosphate chemistry with selective non-fumigant actives applied at a fraction of the rate and priced at a multiple of it; the registration of new reduced-risk actives including fluazaindolizine and cyclobutrifluram; the expansion of nematicidal seed treatment on cotton and soybean; the growth of biological nematicides in Latin America; and rising recognition of nematode damage in high-value fruit and vegetable production.

However, the sustained downturn in the crop protection sector, the removal of established active substances in the European Union without equivalent replacements, grower resistance to the cost per hectare of new chemistry, the narrow crop registrations carried by new actives at launch, and pricing pressure across the agrochemical supply base restrain the growth of this market.

Beyond these, nematicidal seed treatment in row crops, biological actives in Brazilian soybean, sugarcane and coffee, drip and chemigation delivery in protected and perennial cropping, resistance management programmes combining chemical and biological modes of action, and reduced-risk registrations as a route to market access are expected to create significant growth opportunities for the stakeholders in this market.

Nematicides are crop protection products applied to control plant-parasitic nematodes, microscopic soil-dwelling roundworms that feed on root tissue and cause yield loss, stunting and secondary infection across potato, tomato, banana, citrus, cotton, soybean, maize, sugarcane, coffee and turf. The market comprises chemical actives, spanning soil fumigants, organophosphates, carbamates and a newer class of selective non-fumigant chemistry, and biological actives based on bacteria, fungi and botanical extracts. Products are delivered by soil drench, in-furrow placement, drip and chemigation, broadcast incorporation, shank or drip fumigation, seed treatment and foliar application.

The market is being re-based rather than simply growing. The high-rate chemistry that historically carried the tonnage is being withdrawn on operator and consumer safety grounds, with oxamyl refused renewal in the European Union by Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/741 of 5 April 2023 after the European Food Safety Authority found a high risk for operators even when using personal protective equipment. What replaces it is selective chemistry applied at a fraction of the rate and priced at a multiple of it: fluazaindolizine carries a United States Environmental Protection Agency reduced-risk designation and lower use rates than older nematicides, and cyclobutrifluram received its final registration decision on 5 November 2025 for turf, ornamentals, romaine lettuce, and cotton seed and soybean seed.

The consequence is a market whose value and volume move in opposite directions, with value growing at 5.9% while active ingredient tonnage declines at 2.1% a year and price per kilogram more than doubles across the forecast period. This happens against a sustained downturn in the wider crop protection sector, in which FMC reported 2025 revenue down 18% and a GAAP net loss of USD 2.24 billion while authorising exploration of a possible sale of the company.

Stakeholders include research-based agrochemical originators, generic and off-patent manufacturers, soil fumigant formulators and distributors, biological nematicide producers, seed companies applying nematicidal treatments, agricultural retailers and cooperatives, growers in high-value fruit, vegetable and row crop production, and the regulatory authorities that approve, renew and withdraw active substances.

This market measures sales of crop protection products whose primary claim is the control of plant-parasitic nematodes, valued at the manufacturer level and quantified in tonnes of active ingredient. In scope are soil fumigants used for nematode control including 1,3-dichloropropene, metam sodium and metam potassium, chloropicrin, dazomet and dimethyl disulfide; organophosphate and carbamate nematicides including fosthiazate, cadusafos, ethoprophos, terbufos, fenamiphos and oxamyl; selective non-fumigant actives including fluopyram, fluensulfone, fluazaindolizine, cyclobutrifluram, tioxazafen and abamectin seed treatments; and biological actives based on Bacillus species, Purpureocillium lilacinum, Pasteuria species, Trichoderma species and botanical extracts. Nematode-resistant seed traits and varietal resistance are outside the scope, as are soil amendments and fertilisers with incidental nematode suppression. Application rates in scope span 4 orders of magnitude, from above 50 kilograms of active ingredient per hectare for fumigants to below 0.5 kilograms for seed treatment, and unit values span from approximately USD 3 per kilogram to above USD 400 per kilogram.

Because fumigants control weeds and soil-borne fungi as well as nematodes, only the share of fumigant value attributable to nematode control is counted, which is estimated at between 50% and 60% of fumigant sales. That attribution materially affects the volume measure rather than the value measure, because fumigants are applied at rates above 50 kilograms of active ingredient per hectare against 0.5 to 5 kilograms for non-fumigant chemistry and below 0.5 kilograms for seed treatment, so fumigants account for roughly 80,000 of the 96,500 tonnes estimated for 2026 while contributing approximately USD 400 million of the USD 1.93 billion in value.

The upstream of the ecosystem is active ingredient synthesis, comprising fine chemical intermediates, halogenated and organophosphorus feedstocks, and the fermentation capacity and strain libraries that biological actives require. Roughly 80,000 of the 96,500 tonnes of active ingredient estimated for 2026 originate as commodity fumigant chemistry, while the remaining 16,500 tonnes carry approximately 79% of market value. Midstream are three distinct supplier types. Research-based originators including Bayer, Syngenta, Corteva, BASF and Sumitomo Chemical discover and register new actives and carry the regulatory cost. Generic and specialty manufacturers including ADAMA, UPL, Gowan, Rotam, Albaugh and the Chinese producers supply off-patent chemistry at lower cost. Formulators and distributors including TriEst Ag Group and Certis Belchim handle fumigants, which require specialised application equipment and licensed operators. Downstream are agricultural retailers, cooperatives, seed companies applying treatments, and growers.

Biological nematicides sit in a separate ecosystem with a different centre of gravity. Latin America, and Brazil in particular, is the largest market for biological nematode control, served by Koppert, Simbiose Agro, Vittia, Ballagro and Biobest following its acquisition of Biotrop, alongside the biological lines of the research-based originators. Registration timelines for biologicals are shorter than for conventional chemistry and the regulatory burden is lower, which has allowed a dense population of regional producers to establish positions that global suppliers have had to acquire rather than build. This is why the biological segment is identified as the fastest-growing type and why Latin America is identified as the fastest-growing region in this edition.

Cost structure separates sharply by chemistry class, and the separation explains the price trajectory in this edition. Fumigants are commodity chemicals priced at approximately USD 3 to USD 6 per kilogram of active ingredient and applied at above 50 kilograms per hectare, so the grower cost per hectare is carried by volume and by application, including shank injection equipment, tarping and licensed operators. Selective non-fumigant actives are priced between approximately USD 100 and USD 400 per kilogram of active ingredient and applied at 0.5 to 5 kilograms per hectare, so cost per hectare is comparable or lower while tonnage is an order of magnitude smaller. Seed treatment actives are applied below 0.5 kilograms per hectare at the highest price per kilogram of all.

Registration cost is the decisive barrier and it is rising. A new conventional active requires a full dossier covering toxicology, residue, environmental fate, ecotoxicology and operator exposure, and the European experience with oxamyl demonstrates that an operator exposure finding can end a product irrespective of its efficacy, with the European Food Safety Authority concluding in 2022 that risk was high even with personal protective equipment. That cost is recovered over a narrow initial crop list, which is why cyclobutrifluram launched on turf, ornamentals, romaine lettuce and two seed uses rather than broadly, and why new actives at FMC generated approximately USD 200 million against a USD 250 million expectation in 2025.

This market is best understood as a substitution of value for volume. On the sizing in this edition, active ingredient tonnage falls from 96,500.0 tonnes in 2026 to 78,050.0 tonnes in 2036, a negative CAGR of 2.1%, while value grows from USD 1.93 billion to USD 3.42 billion at 5.9%, so the blended price per kilogram of active ingredient rises from approximately USD 20.00 to approximately USD 43.82. The mechanism is composition: fumigant tonnage of roughly 80,000 tonnes in 2026 falls to roughly 55,000 tonnes by 2036 as registrations lapse and restrictions tighten, while non-fumigant and biological tonnage rises from roughly 16,500 to roughly 23,000 tonnes at a far higher unit value.

The preceding edition assumed the opposite relationship, projecting 182,932.2 tonnes by 2031 at a volume CAGR of 8.5% against a value CAGR of 8.9%, a spread of less than half a percentage point. That assumes the chemistry mix holds constant, which is precisely what regulation has prevented. A volume forecast that grows at 8.5% requires fumigant and organophosphate tonnage to expand, and the regulatory record shows the reverse. Any grower economics analysis built on the earlier volume track would understate cost per kilogram by a factor of more than two by the end of the period.

The defining trend is the decoupling of tonnage from revenue. Fumigant and organophosphate chemistry applied above 50 kilograms of active ingredient per hectare is being withdrawn, and the selective actives replacing it work at 0.5 to 5 kilograms per hectare and below 0.5 kilograms in seed treatment. On the sizing in this edition, active ingredient tonnage falls from 96,500.0 tonnes in 2026 to 78,050.0 tonnes in 2036, a negative CAGR of 2.1%, while value grows at 5.9% to USD 3.42 billion and price per kilogram rises from approximately USD 20.00 to approximately USD 43.82. The preceding edition projected volume growth of 8.5% against value growth of 8.9%, a spread of less than half a percentage point, which assumes a constant chemistry mix that regulation has prevented.

Nematicides are now failing review on how they are handled rather than on what they do. The European Food Safety Authority concluded in 2022 that oxamyl presented a high risk for operators even when using personal protective equipment, and that finding, with high consumer exposure through food and drinking water, produced non-renewal under Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/741 of 5 April 2023, effective 1 May 2023, with the approval expiring on 31 October 2023 and stocks usable only until 1 November 2023. Because soil-applied products are handled in concentrated form and loaded into application equipment, the class is structurally exposed to this criterion. The commercial response is visible in product design, with water-dispersible granules displacing dust-generating wettable powders and legacy granules, and with seed treatment removing the grower from handling altogether.

A new nematicide now reaches the market on a short crop list and widens over years. The cyclobutrifluram final registration decision of 5 November 2025 covers five uses, namely turf, ornamentals, romaine lettuce, cotton seed and soybean seed, which excludes potato, banana, citrus, tomato and cucurbits where nematode pressure and crop value are highest. Fluazaindolizine began sales at the end of 2023 in the United States, India and Mexico, having already been sold in Canada and Australia, with European Union registration subject to approval and Brazilian registration requested in 2020 and still in process as of late 2023. The same pattern holds across the sector, with new active ingredient sales at FMC reaching approximately USD 200 million in 2025 against a company expectation of USD 250 million.