CropLife Foundation.

Pesticide use significantly reduces U.S. reliance on foreign oil and migrant labor, according to a newly-released study by the CropLife Foundation. The study shows that by using herbicides to control weeds, U.S. farmers have:

* Saved 337 million gallons of diesel fuel that would otherwise be needed each year for farmers to use mechanical tillage to replace chemical spraying;

* Preempted the need for 7 million additional migrant workers to pull weeds by hand;

* Reduced soil erosion by 356 billion pounds each year as a result of not having to plow weeds under the soil during field planting preparation;

* Increased crop production by 20 percent, equal to 296 billion pounds of food and fiber;

* Reduced the cost of farming by $10 billion a year.

The study reports that farmers spray 215 million crop acres with herbicides every year, applying 349 million pounds of chemicals at a cost of $7.1 billion.

Coauthor Leonard Gianessi says, "One reason that the acreage of organic crops is less than I percent of all crop acres is the high cost and difficulty of controlling weeds without herbicides." The report concludes there is a very limited future for organic crop growing in the United States due to the requirement for large numbers of laborers to pull weeds by hand.