Blinking in the blazing Brazilian sun, a farmer looks up at the sound of an aeroplane, flying low over his sugarcane plantation in Sao Paulo.
A hatch suddenly opens, and a white cloud emerges.
It may look like pesticide, but these are live eggs falling down – from wasps.
Once hatched and grown, the insects inject their own eggs into those of the sugarcane borer – a moth that in its caterpillar stage eats valuable plants – preventing the pest from hatching.
A number of farmers in Brazil have swapped chemicals for wasps, in a country that has recently outgrown the US as the largest consumer of pesticides.
Wasps: They’re awesome
Lightly Seared on the Reality Grill 