Pesticide Use per Hectare 2023

Report year 2023·Data year 2023

Pesticide use (kg per hectare of cropland)·Neither end is better — this is a shape, not a score·Published by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

35 reference years (1990–2024), covering 154 to 183 countries, from FAOSTAT's Pesticides Use domain, with the insecticide, herbicide and fungicide tonnages stored beside the headline. The companion to fertiliser consumption already on the site: together they describe agricultural intensity, which is the environmental cost side of the yield story. ⚠ NEITHER END IS BETTER, and it is set that way deliberately to match fertiliser use, the measure it is meant to be read beside. Heavy application is an environmental and health cost; very low application is often subsistence farming losing crops to pests rather than a choice anybody made. ⚠ IT IS MASS, NOT HARM. A kilogram of one compound is not a kilogram of another, and modern pesticides are applied at a fraction of the rates of the ones they replaced — so a falling figure can mean a switch to more potent chemistry rather than less pressure on the environment. The FAO ranks nobody, so no rank is stored; the POSITION is derived here and labelled as ours.

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