Pesticide Usage

After decades of expansion the market for agricultural pesticides stagnated throughout the 1990s. Very few new active ingredients came to market and the value of the market remained relatively constant. However, latest figures indicate that sales are picking up again. In 2004 the global market for agricultural pesticides rose to US$32,665 million an increase of 4.6% on 2003 figures after inflation.

Agrochemical usage by world areas 2000

Area	% (Total $29.2 billion)
Western Europe	19.8%
Eastern Europe	2.7%
East Asia	27.5%
North America	29.1%
South America	14.9%
Rest of World	6.0%

Developing country markets are still targeted and many of the products sold in these countries are older, cheaper pesticides which are more persistent in the environment or more hazardous to the health of the user. In areas of regular pesticide use the environment is deteriorating, resulting in contaminated water supplies, loss of plant diversity, insect resistance and cattle or other domestic animal deaths.

In 2004 China had the fifth largest pesticide market in the world worth almost US$2,000 million a year. The market is growing fast at around 7-9% a year and will soon overtake France to become the fourth largest market. A greater percentage of pesticides sold are older chemicals whose production is no longer patent protected. In fact, these generic pesticides account for 75% of the agrochemical market in China.

Around 470 million hectares are treated with pesticides each year in China with vegetables (23.8%), rice (18.1%) and wheat (10.4%) accounting for half of all pesticide usage.  Insecticides account for the largest share of the Chinese pesticide market (44%), followed by herbicides (30%), and fungicides (24%). Although insecticide use has steadily increased over the past few years the specific insecticide products used is beginning to change driven by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture, which is gradually beginning to phase out many older organophosphate insecticides.