![]() The EU, consisting of 28 member states, currently has the most comprehensive and protective pesticide regulations of any major agricultural producer. The USA, EU, China, and Brazil each have separate and distinct pesticide regulatory systems designed to protect, to varying degrees, humans and the environment. In addition to being the world’s largest agricultural producers and exporters, the EU, Brazil, USA, and China are some of the world’s largest pesticide users – each using 827 million, 831 million, 1.2 billion, and 3.9 billion pounds of pesticides in 2016, respectively. While many pesticides are efficacious against agricultural pests and widely used to prevent crop damage, the harms to non-target species and humans can be widespread and severe. One widely adopted agricultural practice that is known to have harmful impacts to humans and the environment is the use of pesticides. Many agricultural practices can be harmful to humans and surrounding ecosystems and their potential benefits must be balanced against these harms. In addition, these four nations have the highest export values of any other agricultural producers in the world and, therefore, have an enormous economic interest in maintaining high production. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) has all but abandoned its use of non-voluntary cancellations in recent years, making pesticide cancellation in the USA largely an exercise that requires consent by the regulated industry.įour of the largest agricultural producers in the world are the USA, EU, China, and Brazil – together accounting for more than half of all global agricultural production value. Of the pesticides banned in at least two of these nations, many have been implicated in acute pesticide poisonings in the USA and some are further restricted by individual states. Many pesticides still widely used in the USA, at the level of tens to hundreds of millions of pounds annually, have been banned or are being phased out in the EU, China and Brazil. The majority of pesticides banned in at least two of these three nations have not appreciably decreased in the USA over the last 25 years and almost all have stayed constant or increased over the last 10 years. ![]() Pesticides banned in the EU account for more than a quarter of all agricultural pesticide use in the USA. Of the pesticides used in USA agriculture in 2016, 322 million pounds were of pesticides banned in the EU, 26 million pounds were of pesticides banned in Brazil and 40 million pounds were of pesticides banned in China. There are 72, 17, and 11 pesticides approved for outdoor agricultural applications in the USA that are banned or in the process of complete phase out in the EU, Brazil, and China, respectively. The amount of pesticides that were used in the USA and banned in these other nations was compiled and linear regression was used to identify trends in use. The approval status of more than 500 agricultural pesticides was identified in the USA, EU, Brazil and China and compared between nations. Comparing the inclination and ability of different regulatory agencies to ban or eliminate pesticides that have the most potential for harm to humans and the environment can provide a glimpse into the effectiveness of each nation’s pesticide regulatory laws and oversight. The United States of America (USA), European Union (EU), Brazil and China are four of the largest agricultural producers and users of agricultural pesticides in the world.
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