HAZARD WARNING: Horribly rough napkin math follows. Handle with care. Dispose of properly in an approved napkin-math disposal facility.
In 1990, atrazine (LD50 in rats 672 to 3,000 mg/kg) and alachlor (930 mg/kg and 1350 mg/kg) were the two most common pesticides.
In 2008-2012, glyphosate (LD50 5,600 mg/kg) was by far the most common pesticide, with atrazine in a distant second place. From the report, 746 million pounds of pesticide were used on the high end of the range in 2012. Glyphosate was about 38% of that. Atrazine and metolachlor-s (LD50 1200 mg/kg to 2780 mg/kg in rats) were the 2nd and 3rd most common that year, accounting for around 16% of pesticide use.
But let’s pretend like the average upper range LD50 of atrazine and alachlor was “average pesticide LD50” for 1990. That would be LD50 of 2175 mg/kg on the high end.
If the “average pesticide LD50” for 2012 was 38% the LD50 of glyphosate plus 62% the LD50 of the average upper range of atrazine and meolachlor-s, that would be an average LD50 of 3919 mg/kg.
That would mean that the “average pesticide LD50” seems to have improved by a factor of 2 over that time. Pesticides seem to have gotten dramatically less dangerous since 1990.
This paper makes it appear that over that time, pesticide use has roughly doubled in terms of sheer tonnage. If pesticides have become roughly twice as safe, and are used roughly twice as much, we seem to be roughly putting the same number of lethal doses of pesticide into our planet every year as we were in 1990.
Of course, maybe less (or more) pesticide gets contained than it used to. Maybe less (or more) breaks down before it can do harm to the environment. Maybe less (or more) actually gets consumed by humans in the produce they eat.
World cereal production went up 50% over that time (1990-2012), while world population went up 34% over the same time period. So agricultural output growth has been outpacing population growth by a significant amount. And we’re getting dramatically more efficient in our pesticide use relative to the amount of agricultural output.
Here’s a start at least.
https://ourworldindata.org/pesticides
HAZARD WARNING: Horribly rough napkin math follows. Handle with care. Dispose of properly in an approved napkin-math disposal facility.
Interesting, thanks! Would love to see this going all the way back to ~1900…
I’ll get started on that PhD XD
But wait! There’s more!
World cereal production went up 50% over that time (1990-2012), while world population went up 34% over the same time period. So agricultural output growth has been outpacing population growth by a significant amount. And we’re getting dramatically more efficient in our pesticide use relative to the amount of agricultural output.