Farming groups often claim that the overall weight of pesticides applied to UK land has halved since 1990. This is true, but the types of pesticide used are becoming more toxic, with more harmful chemicals increasing in use, and the land area to which pesticides are applied also increasing.
We also do not have a full picture of how much pesticide is used in the UK; unlike in European countries including Ireland, the country does not have mandatory sales data, so cannot tell how much is being sold to agricultural businesses.
