Pesticide Use Trends

 

Although detailed estimates of pesticide use aren't available for correlating impacts to water quality, general trends in pesticide use may allow states to infer the potential for impacts to water quality on a statewide scale. For example, many new pesticide products have reduced rates of application (compared to new products a decade or two ago), which reduce the total amount of product applied in a given amount of time. Assuming other factors, such as the pesticide's mobility and persistence, and weather conditions in an area are equal, potentially less product will be delivered to streams or groundwater under this scenario.

NDA has taken two sources of pesticide use data, summarized them by year, and made these data available here. These tables are described below, along with links to the original data source and introductory information.

USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (USDA NASS) Herbicide Use Estimates
Agricultural producers are periodically surveyed about their pesticide inputs. These surveys target a specific crop in any given year. Thus, there are data gaps for each crop available here, and not all crops in Nebraska are surveyed. Only Nebraska estimates are shown here. All USDA NASS surveys and census data can be accessed here.

USGS Pesticide Use Estimates
Data from this source include USDA NASS data and proprietary data collected by EPA and individual pesticide registrants. The subset of data shown here is the “high” data set – where areas with no data were interpolated by adjacent areas having some data. The “high” and “low” data sets, background information, as well as U.S. maps showing pesticide use estimates for each active ingredient by year, can be found here.