Is Pesticide Use Increasing?
EPA has been using pesticide sales as a surrogate for determining trends in pesticide usage. EWG described this technique as an inadequate proxy for actual pesticide usage and called the state of government information primitive. But those inadequacies did not stop EWG from using the EPA data anyway. According to the EWG analysis, agricultural pesticide use jumped from 706 million pounds in 1993 to 790 million pounds in 1996. Another source of agrichemical usage information is the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) that makes its database accessible on the internet at http://www.usda.gov/nass/pubs/estindx1.htm#agchem. NASS personnel sample growers within each state using interviews and examinations of actual pesticide use records. The data are subjected to probability analysis to estimate chemical usage and acres treated. The NASS database is developed every other year for fruits and vegetables and every year for field crops. EWG mentioned the NASS database but chos
