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United
States pesticide use estimates
There is no
national pesticide use reporting system in place in the U.S. Instead,
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department
of Agriculture (USDA) both provide estimates of pesticide use based
on statistical sampling methods and/or survey data. A non-governmental
organization, the National Center on Food and Agricultural Policy,
produces the most complete and accurate data set, drawing from EPA
and USDA's work, as well as from working with growers. However,
none of these data sets provide location-specific information for
pesticide use and are not necessarily an accurate reflection of
the pest management strategies of every farmer of a particular crop.
 U.
S. Government Organizations
U.S.
Department of Agriculture
U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency
U.S.
Geological Survey
Non-Governmental
Ogranizations
National
Center on Food and Agricultural Policy
Commercial
Sources
U.S.
Government Organizations
U.S.
Department of Agriculture
The U.S. Department
of Agriculture (USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS)
has been collecting agricultural pesticide use information since
1967. Most recently, in 1989, the USDA began using farmer surveys
to estimate pesticide use on crops and livestock (1). Data on pounds
of pesticide active ingredient by crop, acres treated, and application
rates are collected from major producing states for field crops
(corn, soybeans, cotton, potatoes, wheat) annually. Selected fruit
and vegetable crops are surveyed in alternate years.
There is no
continuous tracking of pesticide use on a particular crop at a specific
location and no estimate of nonagricultural use. Expenditures for
the entire NASS program by USDA in 2001 were $101 million (2). Additional
costs (exact amount unknown) include funds spent by the 45 State
Statistical Offices for their work on collection, verification and
analysis of data used for the statistical estimates.
The USDA Office
of Pest Management Policy (OPMP) also provides information on typical
pesticide use by crop through the Crop Profiles database (3), a
joint effort of the Pesticide Impact Assessment Program (PIAP),
the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service
(CSREES), and state land-grant universities. This database does
not provide a comprehensive picture of pesticide use, but is helpful
for extending survey results by estimation. The budget for PIAP
in 2001 was $5 million (2).
References:
- Agricultural
Chemical Usage, Inputs, Technology, and Weather, USDA Economics
and Statistics Service, United
States Department of Agriculture. Viewed on October 31, 2002.
- FY 2001
Budget Summary, U.S.
Dept. of Agriculture. Viewed on October 31, 2002.
Note: It is difficult to estimate the amount spent solely on collecting
pesticide use information since the NASS program also provides
statistics on production and supplies of food and fiber, prices
paid and received by farmers, and farm labor and wages.
- USDA/OPMP
Crop Profile Database, U.S.
Department of Agriculture. Viewed on October 31, 2002.
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U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency The
U.S. EPA needs quantitative estimates of pesticide use for a number
of regulatory purposes, including risk assessment and evaluation
of typical pesticide use patterns. A variety of data sources are
used to obtain this information; not all of them are publicly available.
The U.S. EPA
publishes a report estimating pesticide sales and usage biennially,
breaking out pesticide sales and use by general category of pesticide
(insecticide, herbicide, etc.) and by agricultural and nonagricultural
use (1). Data on exports and imports are also provided in this report,
but no chemical-, location-, crop- or date-specific information
is available. The cost of acquiring the data and assembling the
report is on the order of $0.5-1M (2).
Data sources
for EPA’s agricultural pesticide use estimates include the
USDA databases, as well as the results of a commercial research
firm that conducts extensive grower surveys and uses statistical
methods to apply the survey results to the entire population of
growers (see below) (3). Pesticide manufacturers also provide use
information to EPA. Less detail is available for nonagricultural
pesticide use, although EPA has published several reports with estimates
(4).
In addition
to collecting sales data, the EPA has started estimating pesticide
use for chemicals being reviewed under the Food
Quality Protection Act of 1996. This information is crop-specific,
but has no location or dates associated with use (5). To date, most
of this work has been done for the organophosphorus (OP) pesticides,
since tolerance reassessments mandated by the 1996 Food Quality
Protection Act are being conducted on these pesticides first. Data
sources for this information include those used in the U.S. EPA
sales and use survey mentioned above, with particular emphasis on
the PIAP Crop Profiles Database.
Another source
of this type of information is the grower- and registrant-generated
Qualitative Usage Assessment Plus (QUA+) database, which provides
information about typical use by pesticide and crop (6). Pesticide
label information is also used in creating these use estimates.
References:
- A.L. Aspelin
and A.H. Grube, Pesticides Industry Sales and Usage: 1996 and
1997 Market Estimates, U.S. EPA, Document
#733-R-99-001 (November 1999). Viewed on October 31, 2002.
- Based on
the cost of commercial data sources and estimated personnel time
required to compile the report.
- Personal
communication, Marypat Corbett, Doane Corporation AgroTrak™
studies, St. Louis, MO.
- a. Nonoccupational
Pesticide Exposure (NOPES) Study, U.S. EPA, Document No. 600390003
b. National Home and Garden Pesticide Use Survey, U.S. EPA, 1992.
- Organophosphate
Use Information, U.S.
EPA Office of Pesticide Programs. Viewed on October 31, 2002.
- The Role
of Use-Related Information in Pesticide Risk Assessment and Risk
Management, Office
of Pesticide Programs Science Policy, U.S. EPA, August 21,
2000. Viewed on October 31, 2002.
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U.S.
Geological Survey
In
prioritizing watersheds for water quality monitoring through the
National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) program, the U.S. Geological
Survey (USGS) developed a method to estimate pesticide use in a
given watershed and mapped
the results. The USGS method uses the National Center for Food
and Agricultural Policy (NCFAP) pesticide use data (see below) and
the USDA NASS crop acreage data to estimate pesticide use in a particular
location. Similar to other estimates, the projected pesticide use
calculated by this method does not take into account local variations
in weather, pest pressures and pesticide use patterns specific to
individual farmers.
References:
- G.P. Thelin
and L.P. Gianessi, Method for Estimating Pesticide Use for
County Areas of the Conterminous United States, U.S. Geological
Survey, Open-File
Report 00-250 (Sacramento, California, 2000). Viewed on October 31, 2002.
- Pesticide
Use in the U.S., U.S. Geological Survey. Viewed on October 31, 2002.
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Non-Governmental
Resources for Pesticide Use Data National
Center for Food and Agricultural Policy
The National
Center for Food and Agricultural Policy (NCFAP) uses the NASS surveys
and acreage data (1), the PIAP Crop Profiles (2), California Pesticide
Use Reports (3), and surveys of extension agents and commodity groups
to estimate pesticide applications to cropland, reporting on pesticide
active ingredients and acres planted at five-year intervals. NCFAP
reports for pesticide use in 1992 and 1997 provide estimates of
pesticide use for 220 pesticides on 87 crops for most states in
the U.S. Pesticide use data are collected over several years and
keyed to acreage data from a single year. Data are not collected
from all states, but at least 90% of the total U.S. crop acreage
is accounted for. This information is free and accessible to the
public on the internet at the NCFAP web site (4).
References:
- 1997
Census of Agriculture,
U.S.
Dept. of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service,
1999. Viewed on October 31, 2002.
- USDA/OPMP
Crop Profile Database, U.S.
Department of Agriculture. Viewed on October 31, 2002.
- California
Pesticide Use Reporting Data, California
Department of Pesticide Regulation. Viewed on October 31, 2002.
- L.P. Gianessi
and M.B. Marcelli, Pesticide Use in U.S. Crop Production,
National Center
for Food and Agricultural Policy, November 2000. Viewed on October 31, 2002.
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Commercial
Resources
There
are several commercial firms that develop pesticide use estimates
and provide them to subscribers for a fee. Doane
Agricultural Services, St. Louis, MO, has collected pesticide
use information for agricultural marketing and management since
1938. Their use information is based on surveys of representative
growers, with the results statistically extrapolated to the entire
population of growers. Stanford Research Institute (SRI) Consulting,
Chemical Business Research Division (CBRD), maintains the Chemical
Economics Handbook
which provides extensive information on sales and use of specific
chemicals. Annual subscription fees for these commercial services
range from hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to millions
of dollars per year, rendering the information inaccessible to the
general public.
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Last
updated
November 11, 2002
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