The Environmental Impacts of Industrial Fertilizers and Pesticides
| Author | Mary Jane Angelo and Seth Hennes |
| Pages | 35-50 |
Page 35
Chapter 3
The Environmental Impacts of
Industrial Fertilizers and Pesticides
Mar y Jane Angelo and Seth Hennes
Although pesticides and fertilizers have been used virtua lly since the origin of agriculture, it was not
until the second half of the 20th century that the use of vast quantities of new synthetic pesticides
and fertilizers became the mainstay of modern conventional farming.1 During World War II, many
new chemicals were synthesized for the rst time, often as part of programs to develop new chemical weap-
ons. e same properties that made these new chemicals eective poisons against enemy troops also made
them eective poisons against pest species. Accordingly, many of these new chemicals began to be used as
agricultural pesticides.
During the latter half of the 20th century, the Green Revolution transformed agriculture and produced
extremely high crop yields but depended on heavy inputs of fertilizers, pesticides, and water. As with most
technological advances, there were unanticipated consequences to the Green Revolution. While high crop
yields increased the availability of food to a growing global population, high inputs of pesticidal chemicals
and synthetic fertilizers resulted in an array of impacts on the environment and human health. is chapter
reviews the history of the use of pesticides and fertilizers used to produce high yields in agriculture and the
potential environmental risks posed by their widespread use.
A. History of Pesticide and Fertilizer Use
Over the past 50 years, U.S agriculture has undergone a dramatic transformation, due in large part to the
technological advances of the Green Revolution, which promoted production practices that would maxi-
mize crop yields. Led by American agronomist Norman Borlaug, the Green Revolution occurred between
the 1940s and t he late 1970s.2 It refers to a series of technology, research, and development policy initia-
tives aimed at feeding hungry people around the world through the development of high-yield crop variet-
ies using seed hybridization and other agricultural techniques.3 To produce higher per acre farm y ields,
human labor was supplanted by technology and a reliance on large inputs of fossil fuel and mechani zed
farm equipment.4 New government policies encouraged high-yield farming of commodity crops by linking
subsidy payments to production levels. High-yield farming was further promoted by an increase in govern-
ment funding for research and development and the creation of a vast network of the agriculture extension
1. Mary Jane Angelo, Corn, Carbon, and Conservation: Rethinking U.S. Agricultural Policy in a Changing Global Environment, 17 G. M
L. R. 605-09 (2010).
2. Alan L. Olmstead & Paul W. Rhode, Adapting North American Wheat Production to Climatic Challenges, 1839-2009, 108 P
N A S 480, 483 (2011).
3. Id.
4. Angelo, Corn, Carbon, and Conservation, supra note 1; William S. Eubanks II, A Rotten System: Subsidizing Environmental Degradation and
Poor Public Health With Our Nation’s Tax Dollars, 28 S. E. L.J. 213, 269-70 (2009) [hereinafter Eubanks, A Rotten System].
Portions of this chapter have been adapted from, with permission, Mary Jane Angelo, Corn, Carbon, and Conservation: Rethinking U.S. Agricultural
Policy in a Changing Global Environment, 17 G. M L. R. 593 (2010); Mary Jane Angelo, e Killing Fields: Reducing the Casualties in the
Battle Between U.S. Endangered Species and Pesticide Law, 32 H. E. L. R. 96 (2008); Mary Jane Angelo, Regulating Evolution for Sale: An
Evolutionary Biology Model for Regulating the Risks Posed by Genetically Modied Organisms, 42 W F L. R. 93 (2007); and Mary Jane
Angelo, Embracing Uncertainty, Complexity and Change to Protect Ecological Integrity: An Eco-Pragmatic Reinvention of a First Generation Environmental
Law, 33 E L.Q. 105 (2006).
Page 36 Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Law
service to educate and train farmers in high-yield commodity farming.5 e Green Revolution is estimated
to have resulted in an increase of more than 150% in farm production over the past 60 years.6
e predominant U.S. agricultural production system t hat grew out of the Green Revolution is what is
often referred to as “industrialized agriculture,” which is characterized by large-scale monocultures7 (the
cultivation of one crop over a large area), limited crop varieties, heavy use of synthetic chemicals and other
inputs, and the separation of anima l and plant agriculture.8 Large-scale monocultures and other indus-
trial a gricultural practices require large inputs of chemical pesticides and fertilizers in large par t because
these practices tend to eliminate or drastically reduce the natural nonchemical pest control and soil nutri-
ent enhancements that were integral parts of agriculture prior to the Green Revolution.9 Monocultures
eliminate the diversity, and thus the natural forces that can keep pest populations in check, that formerly
occurred through intercropping, crop sequencing, or crop rotation.10 Consequently, large monocultures
depend on chemical pesticide and fertilizer inputs to control pests and enhance soil fertility.11 Each of these
features, alone and in combination, has the potential to contribute to a variety of environmental, human
health, and socioeconomic impacts.
Synthetic chemical pesticides developed during World War II were spectacularly eective at controlling
a wide variety of pests, a nd they quickly began to be used t hroughout the United States and other regions
of the world. Estimates of global chemical pesticide use show that more than 1,600 types of pesticides are
currently available.12 More than ve billion pounds of pesticides, with a value of almost $40 billion, are
used annually in the world.13 Pesticide use in the United States accounts for approximately 22% of global
pesticide usage, with more than one billion pounds of pesticides with a value of approximately $12 billion
used a nnually.14 U.S. exports to other countries exceed 450 million pounds of pesticides per year.15 e
use of chemical pest icides has more than doubled since the time large-scale environmental regulation was
instituted in the early 1970s. Pesticide use in the United States has almost tripled since Rachel Carson pub-
lished Silent Spring in t he early 1960s.16 Farms use enormous quantities of pesticides every year, and since
1979 agriculture has accounted for approximately 80% of pesticide use in the United States.17 e Pesticide
Action Network has pointed out that sta rting in 2004, there was a signica nt growth in worldwide pesti-
cides sales.18 e current global pesticide market of approximately $40 billion per year19 is expected to grow
by approximately 3% per year, reaching approximately $52 billion per year by 2014.20
e rapid worldwide adoption of synthetic chemical pesticides began during World War II with t he
development of two primary categories of chemical insecticides: the organochlorines and the organophos-
phates. e organochlorines, which include the notorious pesticide DDT,21 were rst considered highly
desirable because, while very toxic to a broad range of invertebrates, they a re not hig hly acutely toxic to
humans or other mammals.22 Organochlorine pesticides such a s DDT are credited with saving thousands
5. Angelo, Corn, Carbon, and Conservation, supra note 1, at 602; Eubanks, A Rotten System, supra note 4, at 251-52.
6. U.S. Dep’t. Agric., Econ. Res. Service, Agricultural Productivity in the United States, http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/agricultural-
productivity-in-the-us.aspx (last updated July 5, 2012) (“e level of U.S. farm output in 2008 was 158 percent above its level in 1948.”).
7. For a discussion of the global reliance on monoculture farming, see Helena Norberg-Hodge, Global Monoculture: e Worldwide Destruction
of Diversity, in T F H R: T T I A 58 (Andrew Kimbrell ed., 2002).
8. Union of Concerned Scientists, Industrial Agriculture: Features and Policy, http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/
impacts_industrial_agriculture/industrial-agriculture-features.html (last revised May 17, 2007); see also Kelley R. Tucker, Wildlife Harvest, in
T F H R, supra note 7, at 208, 221 (discussing the impacts of agriculture on wildlife).
9. H.F. E M.W. S, P V C at 41-42 (2004).
10. Id.
11. Id.
12. Clive A. Edwards, e Impact of Pesticides on the Environment, in T P Q: E, E E 13
(David Pimentel & Hugh Lehman eds., 1993).
13. Arthur Grube et al., U.S. EPA, Pesticide Industry Sales and Usage 2006 and 2007, http://www.epa.gov/opp00001/pestsales/ (last visited Oct.
25, 2012).
14. Id.
15. Edwards, supra note 12, at 13.
16. J C, W A E 49 (2004) (citing Kimbrell 2002).
17. J.B. Ruhl, Farms, eir Environmental Harms, and Environmental Law, 27 E L.Q. 263, 283 (2000).
18. Pesticide Action Network, Myths About Pesticides, http://www.panna.org/science/myths (last visited Oct. 25, 2012).
19. Id.
20. Id.
21. DDT is the abbreviation for synthetic insecticide, 1, 1, 1-trichloro-2, 2-bis (p-chlorophenyl) ethane. R E. P, F
A E 227, 755 (3d ed. 1978).
22. Edwards, supra note 12, at 14.
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