FUN FACTS
- As many as 38% of imported blackberries are contaminated with pesticide banned in the U.S.
- Use of pesticides has doubled in the last 30 years.
- 60 million birds are killed annually by legal pesticide use in the U.S.
- Every day, approximately 1 million American children age 5 and under are exposed to levels of neurotoxic pesticides in food that exceed EPA safety standards.
- Pesticides that EPA has judged too dangerous for domestic use, as well as pesticides never evaluated by EPA, are routinely shipped from U.S. ports to other countries.
- American farmers use 1.5 billion pounds of pesticides each year - about five pounds for every man, woman, and child. These pesticides end up in about half the food we eat.
- Only about 1 percent of all food shipments are tested for pesticides. Indeed, standard government laboratory tests aren’t even able to detect more than half of the 500 or so pesticides currently in agricultural use.
- 66 pesticides sprayed on food crops contain cancer causing agents. Of the 560 million pounds of herbicides used by American farmers annually, 375 million pounds probably or possibly cause cancer.
- Only 10 percent of the 35,000 pesticides introduced since 1945 have been tested for their effects on people.
- Even worse, some 40 percent of pesticides are used to make food look good.
- As many as 75% of imported pineapples are contaminated with pesticides banned in the U.S.
- The amount of pesticides sprayed on a typical acre of a golf course in a year is seven or eight times the amount applied to a typical acre of agricultural land.
- Farmer who apply little or no chemicals to crops are usually as productive as those who use pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.