Pesticide Use on Selected Crops: Aggregated Data, 1977-80

U.S. farms applied an average 556 million pounds of pesticides in 354 million acre-treatments on 175 million acres of field, fruit, and vegetable crops annually from 1977 to 1980. These figures are based on reported pesticide use in surveys completed in various years and do not include all of the above crops in any year surveyed. Because planted acreage showed minimal annual change, general pesticide use per planted acre probably did not vary much from year to year. However, this may not be true for specific pesticides. Herbicides constituted 68 percent of the acre-treatments, insecticides 26 percent, fungicides 4 percent, and all other pesticides 2 percent. Field crops accounted for 89 percent of the acre-treatments, fruits 6 percent, and vegetables 5 percent. Although field corn and soybean farmers accounted for 68 percent of the acre-treatments, the intensity of application was lower for these crops than for other surveyed crops