The pesticide explosion

The most damaging environmental consequence of intensive farm production in the past 30 years has been farmers’ widespread use of pesticides, especially insecticides. Of all the agro-chemicals, insecticides are typically more toxic then other agro-chemicals. Insecticide use exploded because of both supply and demand factors. On the demand side, farmers worried that their larger and more frequent harvests would attract insect pests. This fear, along with aggressive marketing by pesticide producers, led farmers to spray ever-increasing quantities of these chemicals on their crops (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Trends in use of insecticides and other pesticides in wetland rice production in Indonesia. Source of raw data: Cost Structure of Paddy and Secondary Food Crops, Badan Pusat Statistik, Indonesia (various issues).