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EPA Releases Report Containing Latest Estimates of Pesticide Use in the United States
EPA's report, "Pesticide Industry Sales and Usage: 2000 and 2001 Market Estimates” is now available to the public. This report contains the latest estimates of pesticide use in the United States. It includes information on agricultural and nonagricultural pesticide use and illustrates graphically historical trends and levels of use over the last 20 years. Also included are data on imports, exports, firms, employment, the number of certified applicators, and the number of pesticides in use. The report contains statistics on pesticide sales and usage based on available information taken from Agency records of registrations, USDA surveys of pesticide use, and other public and proprietary sources. Highlights include:
- Conventional pesticide use was down slightly from recent years at about 888 million pounds of active ingredient in 2001, 926 in 2000, and approximately 912 million pounds in both 1999 and 1998.
- Nonconventional pesticides, including wood preservatives, chlorine and hypochlorites, and specialty biocides, pushed total U.S. pesticide use to about 4,972 million pounds of active ingredient in 2001.
- Pesticide use occurs on more than 941,000 farms and in more than 78 million households in the United States.
- Herbicides were the leading type of pesticides used, in terms of both user expenditures and volume.
- With 85 to 90 million pounds used in 2001, the herbicide glyphosate replaced atrazine as the most widely used pesticide in the agricultural market sector–up from number 2 in 1999, 5 in 1997, and 17 in 1987.
- 2,4-D was the most widely used pesticide in both the home and garden and the industry/commercial/government sectors with 8-11 and 16-18 million pounds used in each sector, respectively.
- Annual U. S. pesticide user expenditures totaled approximately $11,090 million in 2001 accounting for about 34% of the total world market.
The new report is available on EPA's Web site at http://www.epa.gov/oppbead1/pestsales/index.htm.
Multiple copies of the report can be obtained by writing to: NCEPI, P. O. Box 2419, Cincinnati, OH 45242-2419. Request EPA Publication # 733-R-04-001. Previous reports are also available online at the above Web site.
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