# pesticides in cotton **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 16, 2005, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pesticides-in-cotton/326460 "2005-10-16T12:09:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![queen\_of\_thrilorka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/a183cd/32.png) [@queen\_of\_thrilorka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/queen_of_thrilorka)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pesticides-in-cotton/326460/1 "2005-10-16T12:09:20Z")
All the organic cotton sellers say that cotton uses 25% of the world’s pesticides though it is 3% of the world’s crop (3% is still a lot). Is this true? Q of T ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pesticides-in-cotton/326460/2 "2005-10-17T04:57:05Z")
> [@queen of thrilorka](#): > > All the organic cotton sellers say that cotton uses 25% of the world’s pesticides though it is 3% of the world’s crop (3% is still a lot). Is this true? > > Q of T I couldn’t say whether the specific numbers are true, but they’re not far off. Cotton is notorious for requiring immense quantities of pesticides. ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pesticides-in-cotton/326460/3 "2005-10-17T06:31:23Z")
A quick glance at my books says yes, that is roughly accurate. Its a book, so typing a cite will be bothersome, and I can do it tomorrow when I’m not getting ready for bed. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pesticides-in-cotton/326460/4 "2005-10-17T07:09:55Z")
Someone else asked the same question a little while back, and i did a bit of Googling to find some numbers. [Here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=6493783#post6493783) is the post i made. > [@mhendo](#): > > Well, i remember reading a couple of books on sustainable agriculture a few years ago, and they both made the claim that cotton uses a drastically disproportionate amount of the world’s herbicides and insecticides. I can’t remember the numbers in those books, but i remember being staggered at how high they were. > > According to [this website](http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GMCFATW.php): > > > [@](#): > > > > Cotton is responsible for more than 10% of world pesticide use including some of the most hazardous, and 25% of all insecticide use. > > Regarding your point about food crops, remember that insect pests don’t necessarily consume the same parts of the plants as humans do, and that there are plenty of insects (not just the boll weevil) that can have a detrimental effect on cotton crops. Also, remember that the more general term pesticide can include herbicides and fungicides, so it’s not just insects that they’re trying to drive away. > > According to [this website](http://www.pan-uk.org/pestnews/pn45/pn45p12.htm): > > > [@](#): > > > > Cotton production in India accounts for 35-45% by value of pesticide use, while occupying only 5% of cultivated land. > > And [this site](http://www.panna.org/resources/documents/conventionalCotton.dv.html) says: > > > [@](#): > > > > Each year cotton producers around the world use nearly $2.6 billion worth of pesticides – more than 10% of the world’s pesticides and nearly 25% of the world’s insecticides. > > Unforutnately, none of these articles provide citations, so i don’t know what study came up with the original figures. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pesticides-in-cotton/326460/5 "2005-10-17T07:11:46Z")
Cotton is like popcorn to insects. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pesticides-in-cotton/326460/6 "2005-10-17T08:12:22Z")
> [@ouryL](#): > > Cotton is like popcorn to insects. Cite? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pesticides-in-cotton/326460/7 "2005-10-17T08:37:23Z")
Oddly enough, polyester is like cotton to insects. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pesticides-in-cotton/326460/8 "2005-10-17T10:12:17Z")
> [@queen of thrilorka](#): > > All the organic cotton sellers say that cotton uses 25% of the world’s pesticides though it is 3% of the world’s crop (3% is still a lot). Is this true? The first question you need to ask is what exactly is meant by “3% of the world’s crop”? It is not, as you might expect, 3% by tonnage, or 3% by value. It is simply 3% by gross land area. IOW it isn’t 3% of the world’s crop at all, it is just 3% of the world’s crop area. Then we can look at what cotton pesticide usage actually is. According to IUPAC (Warning, PDF) cotton accounts for just under 8% of the world’s pesticide use. So a crop that occupies 3% of the crop area utilises less than 8% of the world’s pesticides. That doesn’t sound very surprising to me. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pesticides-in-cotton/326460/9 "2005-10-17T12:26:24Z")
[Here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=269608) is a possibly relevant, rather short thread I posted a while back re: pesticides in cottonseed _oil_. I still wonder what gets through into our food. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pesticides-in-cotton/326460/10 "2005-10-17T14:37:12Z")
As an aside, cotton growers in the US are in the process of drastically reducing the pesticides with the Boll Weevil Eradication Program. If you drive around in cotton-producing areas like West Texas, you’ll see little green bottles at the field borders every couple hundred yards. These bottles have some kind of pheremone or something that attracts the male boll weevil and traps him. If any weevils are found around a field, they nuke that particular field with pesticides, but only that one. The BWEP has already pretty much eradicated the weevil in the Southeast US, and now they’re working on Texas. The goal of the program, BTW, is to save money by drasitcally reducing the amount of pesticides. The program is fairly expensive to run (with all the monitoring of the collection bottles), but the cost savings make it worthwhile.