Source: Sonja Begemann, AGWEB, 10/25/18


Farmers spend more than $12 billion annually on pesticides, according to the most recent data from USDA. For comparison, farmers only spent $2.3 billion on pesticides in the 1960s. USDA tracks pesticide expenditures, which currently account for 3.1% of total agricultural costs—lower than their all-time high in 1998 at 4%. Pesticide costs, including herbicides, insecticides and fungicides, have been on the rise since 2000, according to University of Illinois Farmdoc Daily. In 2000, they were about $33 per acre and in 2017 they jumped to $73 per acre.

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