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Section One: Pesticide Basics
A Heavy Dependence on Chemicals
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For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death. In the less than two decades of their use, the synthetic pesticides have been so thoroughly distributed throughout the animate and inanimate world that they occur virtually everywhere.
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Though long employed in farming to attack pests and save crops, pesticides have not always figured so prominently in agricultural practices as they do today. Before the advent of synthetic organic chemicals in the 1940s, farmers raised a mix of crops and livestock and relied on the diversity and rotation of crops as well as cultivation to control insect and weed pests.
But increasing demands for food and fiber as well as the availability of agrichemicals brought dramatic changes to the face of U.S. agriculture. Continuous cropping of single commodities became the norm; small diversified farming declined. Agricultural productivity increased dramatically, but agriculture became increasingly dependent on off-farm inputs — namely synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.
The use of synthetic fertilizers increased by half in the period
from 1940 to 1944, and continued to grow at a relatively
steady rate for some 40 years. 2
The use of synthetic organic pesticides likewise grew dramatically after the end of the World War II, and
in the years from 1964 to 1984, the total poundage applied on
farm fields increased by 170 percent. 3
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According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), much of the increase in pesticide use in the 1960's and early 70's was due to the widespread adoption and use of herbicides for battling weeds. In 1956 only eleven percent of corn acreage and five percent of cotton acreage was treated with herbicides.4 Today herbicides are "the most used pesticides accounting for 69 percent of the weight of all pesticide active ingredients and 78 percent of the total number of acre-treatments." 5 Herbicide use, reports USDA, is now nearly universal on corn, soybean and cotton acreage; insecticide use is most intensive on cotton; and fungicides and other pesticides are used most heavily on potatoes. 5 |
Top Ten Agricultural Pesticides
US EPA 6 Note: List includes only "conventional pesticides;" does not include sulfur or petroleum oil/distillates. |
“Since 1945,” reports Cornell University pesticide expert David Pimentel, “the use of synthetic pesticides in the United States has grown 33-fold.” 7 While on-farm usage of pesticides accounts for nearly 70 percent of U.S. pesticide sales, 6 the use of chemicals for pest control is in no way confined to the agricultural sector. Synthetic chemicals are used in homes and gardens, for treating wood products and consumer goods, in schools and government buildings, along rights of way, turf farms and golf courses. Overall, each U.S. citizen uses an annual average of 17 pounds of all types of pesticides. 6 Today, says the USDA, the total dollar value of the domestic agricultural pesticides has reached a staggering $7.5 billion, with herbicides accounting for about two-thirds of the agricultural expenditures for pesticides. 8
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According to USDA, the dramatic increase in the use of pesticides has slowed somewhat since the early 80s, and for certain crops the amounts have leveled off or actually declined in recent years. Still an estimated 565 million pounds of pesticides were applied to major agricultural products in 1995, an increase of 13 percent from 1990. 8 |
1. Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, 1962.
2. Trautmann, Nancy M., et al, Cornell University, "Modern Agriculture: Its Effects on the Environment," available at <http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/facts-slides-self/facts/mod-ag-grw85.html>.
3. National Research Council, Alternative Agriculture, 1989.
4. Agricultural Law and Policy Institute, University of Minnesota, Farming & Groundwater: An Introduction, 1988.
5. Economic Research Service, USDA, "Pest Management on Major Field Crops," Agricultural Resources and environmental Indicators 1997 Update available at <http://www.econ.ag.gov/Briefing/arei/arei.htm>.
6. US EPA, Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, Pesticides Industry Sales and Usage: 1996 and 1997 Market Estimates, 1999 (final draft).
7. Pimentel, David, et al, "Environmental and Economic Impacts of Reducing U.S. Agricultural Pesticide Use," in The Pesticide Question: Environment, Economics, and Ethics, 1993.
8. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Agricultural Resources and Environmental Indicators, 1996-97, Agricultural Handbook Number 712, July 1997, available at <http://www.econ.ag.gov/epubs/pdf/ah712/>.
9. Fernandez-Cornejo, Jorge and Sharon Jans, Economic Research Services, USDA, "Pest Management in U.S. Agriculture," Agricultural Handbook No 717, 1999, available at <http://www.ers.usda.gov/epubs/pdf/ah717/>.
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Posted January 7, 2000
Copyright Friends of the Earth, 2000
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