IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/uerser/308423.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Pesticide and Fertilizer Use and Trends in U.S. Agriculture

Author

Listed:
  • Lin, Biing-Hwan
  • Padgitt, Merritt
  • Bull, Len
  • Delvo, Herman
  • Shank, David
  • Taylor, Harold

Abstract

Pesticides used on major crops more than doubled during 1964-82 (from 233 to 612 million pounds of active ingredients). Nitrogen, phosphate, and potash use for all purposes (agriculture and nonagriculture) rose from 7.5 million pounds in 1960 to a record high of 23.7 million pounds in 1981. These increases in pesticide and fertilizer use were a result of a larger crop acreage, higher application rates per acre, and increased proportions of acres treated with chemicals. Since the early 1980's, pesticide and fertilizer use in U.S. agriculture has declined with crop acreage, and amounted to 574 million pounds of pesticides and 20.7 million tons of fertilizers in 1992. Corn leads other crops, by a substantial margin, in the total quantity of pesticides and fertilizers used. Insecticide use on corn can be greatly reduced by rotating crops and significant reductions in herbicide and nitrogen use can be achieved by adjusting application timing and method.

Suggested Citation

  • Lin, Biing-Hwan & Padgitt, Merritt & Bull, Len & Delvo, Herman & Shank, David & Taylor, Harold, 1995. "Pesticide and Fertilizer Use and Trends in U.S. Agriculture," Agricultural Economic Reports 308423, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:uerser:308423
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.308423
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/308423/files/aer717.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.308423?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ferguson, Walter L., 1984. "1979 Pesticide Use On Vegetables In Five Regions," Staff Reports 276786, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    2. Hertel, Thomas W. & Tsigas, Marinos E. & Preckel, Paul V., 1990. "An Economic Assessment of the Freeze on Program Yields," Staff Reports 278355, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    3. James W. Mjelde & M. Edward Rister & Ronald C. Griffin & Lawrence A. Lippke, 1992. "Are Government Programs Influencing Input Intensity?," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 14(2), pages 227-239.
    4. Gerald Carlson & Mark Cochran & Michele Marra & David Zilberman, 1992. "Agricultural Resource Economics and the Environment," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 14(2), pages 313-326.
    5. Stan G. Daberkow & Katherine H. Reichelderfer, 1988. "Low-Input Agriculture: Trends, Goals, and Prospects for Input Use," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 70(5), pages 1159-1166.
    6. Parks, John R., 1983. "Pesticide Use on Fall Potatoes in the United States, 1979," Staff Reports 337011, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    7. Shoemaker, Robbin & Anderson, Margot & Hrubovcak, James, 1990. "U.S. Farm Programs and Agricultural Resources," Agricultural Information Bulletins 309567, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    8. Fox, Glenn & Weersink, Alfons & Sarwar, Ghulam & Duff, Scott & Deen, Bill, 1991. "Comparative Economics Of Alternative Agricultural Production Systems: A Review," Northeastern Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 20(1), pages 1-19, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aldy, Joseph E. & Hrubovcak, James & Vasavada, Utpal, 1998. "The role of technology in sustaining agriculture and the environment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 81-96, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Osteen, Craig D. & Szmedra, Philip I., 1989. "Agricultural Pesticide Use Trends and Policy Issues," Agricultural Economic Reports 308081, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    2. Ferguson, Walter L., 1985. "Pesticide Use on Selected Crops: Aggregated Data, 1977-80," Agricultural Information Bulletins 309340, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    3. Ervin, David & Algozin, Kenneth & Carey, Marc & Doering, Otto & Frerichs, Stephen & Heimlich, Ralph & Hrubovcak, Jum & Konyar, Kazim & McCormick, Ian & Osborn, Tim & Ribaudo, Marc & Shoemaker, Robbin, 1991. "Conservation and Environmental Issues in Agriculture: An Economic Evaluation of Policy Options," Staff Reports 278567, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    4. Li, Xin, 2016. "The Farmland Valuation Revisited," International Journal of Food and Agricultural Economics (IJFAEC), Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University, Department of Economics and Finance, vol. 4(2), pages 1-14, April.
    5. Ravenswaay, Eileen O. van, 1993. "Linkages between Agricultural Marketing and Environmental Policies," Staff Paper Series 201168, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    6. Swinton, Scott M. & King, Robert P., 1994. "A bioeconomic model for weed management in corn and soybean," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 313-335.
    7. Whittaker, Gerald W. & Lin, Biing-Hwan & Vasavada, Utpal, 1995. "Restricting Pesticide Use: The Impact On Profitability By Farm Size," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 27(2), pages 1-11, December.
    8. Lakshminarayan, P. G., 1993. "Tradeoffs in balancing multiple objectives of an integrated agricultural economic and environmental system," ISU General Staff Papers 1993010108000011833, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    9. Feng, Hongli & Kurkalova, Lyubov A. & Kling, Catherine L. & Gassman, Philip W., 2006. "Environmental conservation in agriculture: Land retirement vs. changing practices on working land," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 600-614, September.
    10. Fox, Glenn, 1990. "The Economics Of The Sustainable Agriculture Movement," 1990 Annual meeting, August 5-8, Vancouver, Canada 270725, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    11. Ribaudo, Marc & Shoemaker, Robbin A., 1995. "The Effect Of Feedgrain Program Participation On Chemical Use," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 24(2), pages 1-10, October.
    12. Greene, Catherine R. & Cuperus, Gerrit W., 1991. "Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in the Vegetable Industry During the 1980's," Staff Reports 278377, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    13. Miller, J. Corey & Coble, Keith H., 2007. "Cheap food policy: Fact or rhetoric?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 98-111, February.
    14. Batie, Sandra S., 1989. "Sustainable Development: Challenges to the Profession of Agricultural Economics," 1989 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 2, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 270686, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    15. Gebremedhin, Berhanu & Schwab, Gerald, 1998. "The Economic Importance Of Crop Rotation Systems: Evidence From The Literature," Staff Paper Series 11690, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    16. James S. Shortle & Andrew Laughland, 1994. "Impacts Of Taxes To Reduce Agrichemical Use When Farm Policy Is Endogenous," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(1), pages 3-14, January.
    17. Marita Laukkanen & NAUGES Céline, 2009. "Environmental and production cost impacts of no-till: estimates from observed behavior," LERNA Working Papers 09.28.304, LERNA, University of Toulouse.
    18. Greene, Catherine & Zepp, Glenn, 1989. "Changing Pesticide Regulations: A Promise for Safer Produce," Food Review/ National Food Review, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, vol. 12(3), September.
    19. Gao, Li & Zhang, Wendong & Mei, Yingdan & Sam, Abdoul G. & Song, Yu & Jin, Shuqin, 2018. "Do farmers adopt fewer conservation practices on rented land? Evidence from straw retention in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 609-621.
    20. Batie, Sandra S., 1994. "Designing A Successful Voluntary Green Support Program: What Do We Know?," Staff Paper Series 11824, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:uerser:308423. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ersgvus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.