Pesticide Use and Exposure in Saskatchewan

Statistics and concerns about pesticide use in Saskatchewan

  • Over 20 million kg of herbicides/year are used in the Prairies, with 8.4 million kg used in Saskatchewan in 1988.
  • Our insecticide use reached around 4 million kg for grasshoppers in the 1980s and is likely close to that now due to the wheat midge problem.
  • 36% of all pesticides used in Canada are used in SK.

Outdoor use in cities, town, municipality and residences

  • 67% of Canadians gardeners use pesticides and city residents use 6 to15 times the amount of pesticides/acre as agriculture uses. While total quantities are smaller, this use is important because a large proportion of our population lives in cities and towns. Children, spending more time on lawns and in parks, are especially exposed.
  • Herbicides are regularly used by municipalities and private residents in cracks on hard surfaces, ditches, parks and open spaces, golf courses, and private lawns.
  • Insecticides are regularly used for mosquito control, on trees, for various pest insects indoors (cockroaches, crickets) and outdoors (DED-carrying insects, wasps). They are also used for pets and livestock as dips and flea collars and on us as lice shampoos.
  • Fungicides are sprayed on plants and used in wood treatment, algicides in swimming pools and rodenticides for small mammal control.

Exposure

No one is unexposed to pesticides. We are exposed to pesticides in six ways:

  • Air

    Millions of kilograms of active ingredients of pesticide volatilize off site ever year. Pesticides have been measured 40 km away from sprayed sites. Pesticides evaporate off sprayed surfaces for many days or months at an average of 5-20 % of active ingredients, and up to 80-100 %. The estimated evaporative drift in Saskatchewan would therefore be in the order of 500,000 to 2,000,000 kg/year for herbicides only. Pesticide from a sprayed lawn can be detected 15 meters away. Anyone living in an urban area in Saskatchewan breathes air with measurable quantities of 15-19 herbicides in late spring.

  • Water

    Pesticides have been detected in rain in Saskatchewan. They are present in all our surface waters including all farm dugouts and sloughs tested, very often at levels above aquatic life guidelines. They also contaminate glacier meltwater and groundwater.

  • Food

    25% of randomly sampled Canadian produce bears traces of pesticides, 1.2% at illegal levels. Pesticides have also been found in mothers' milk.

  • Soil, dust, and sediments

    Lawn herbicides are tracked indoors where they can remain in carpets for over one year. Pesticides were found in dust from all the homes in a North carolina study and in all farm homes in Iowa. Such testing has not been done in SK, but the results should be similar. Pesticides have been found in blown dust and dirt in Saskatchewan.

    From a Presentation to Saskatchewan's Cabinet on behalf of Nature Saskatchewan, February 2000 by Paule Hjertaas
    Environmental Health Consultant, Board Member, Nature Saskatchewan

    Contact: Saskatchewan Network for Alternates to Pesticides
    15 Olson Place, Regina, SK
    S4S 2J6
    snapinfo@sasktel.net