The government carries out a survey of pesticide use every year which they publish on the Pesticide Use Survey Statistics (PUS STATS) website. The data they publish only covers pesticides in detail by type (i.e. herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and so on). Crucially, this is only measured by weight and not by how powerful (toxic) the pesticides are.
What we can say is that pesticides impact nearly all life on earth. They are substances designed to kill pests and undesirable plants. Yet, their impact is not limited to these effects. Some pesticides have been shown to be more damaging to human health than others. They can be toxic and bio-accumulate in bodies through direct contact or residues, with varied effects such as cancer and endocrinal disruption. You can read more about health effects here, and about residues in our report, The Cocktail Effect. Pesticides also affect the environment, leaching into soils and waterways, killing insects, and depleting bird and fish populations.
To grow food, pests need to be kept under control. In industrial agricultural practices, where farmers rely on pesticides to grow monocultures, pests and diseases have actually been shown to increase their resistance, progressively calling for larger amounts of these chemicals to successfully treat crops, to greater health and environmental repercussions. A vicious cycle.
Thankfully, managing crop loss has been proven to be possible without the use of harmful chemicals, and without putting humans and biodiversity at risk. Through Integrated Pest Management (IPM), farmers turn to a suite of techniques to work with nature to protect crops against pests and disease, instead of using synthetic pesticides.