2026-05-28 · tonnes of pesticides (recent year)
Pesticide use keeps rising in total
Herbicides dominate modern agriculture. Rich countries use less per hectare — global tonnes still climb.
More than half of the world's pesticide use is one class of chemistry: herbicides. Roughly 4 million tonnes are applied in a recent year, and the total keeps rising even as rich countries use less per hectare. The mix reaching fields, soils and water is, above all, weedkiller.
1 cell = 4,000 tonnes of pesticides (recent year) (0.1% of global pesticide use) · 1,000 cells
Context
Herbicides account for 52% of global pesticide use, insecticides 28%, and fungicides plus other products the remaining 20%, per FAOSTAT's series for 2026. Weedkillers alone outweigh every other category combined.
The tension is volume versus intensity: wealthy countries apply less pesticide per hectare, yet global tonnage keeps climbing. The roughly 4 million tonnes shown here are a rising baseline, not a peak.
Herbicide dominance shapes what pesticide exposure looks like in practice — residues, runoff and weed-resistance pressure trace back mostly to one category. As global tonnage grows, weedkillers set the terms.
FAOSTAT pesticide use by type, global tonnes rounded.
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Credit this grid as Inagrid — https://inagrid.com/e/2026-05-28-pesticide-tonnage