China shipped about 60 million predacious acarids (mites) to the Netherlands on Wednesday, the first such export of the natural "pest eaters" who prey on their destructive brethren, customs sources said.

The Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau in Fuzhou, the capital of the southeastern province of Fujian, confirmed that the mites would be used to fight pest diseases among cultivated roses. The export shipment is valued at 6,700 euro (about 11,000 US dollars).

The exporter, the Fujian Yanxuan Biological Treatment Tech. Co. Ltd. said that the Dutch buyer expected further shipments.

China has been using these mites to control pest acarids on orange, Mao-bamboo, cotton, apple and tea plants in 350 counties in 20 provinces and municipalities, said Zhang Yanxuan, board chairwoman.

This natural enemy of harmful mites was able to substitute for 3,200 tons of pesticide on 191,000 hectares of the company's demonstration sites.

"The biological treatment of pest diseases has helped 870,000 rural households in China, since these pest eaters only cost half as much as pesticide would," said Zhang, who is also an academician at the Fujian provincial academy of agricultural sciences.

She set up the privately-owned company in 2005 to commercialize the biotechnology research that has occupied her since the 1980s. The company now has an annual incubation capacity of 800 billion predacious acarids, sufficient to treat 66,666 ha of fields or orchards.

(Xinhua News Agency March 27, 2008)