OTTAWA — Ontario growers use less herbicides but more insecticides than the rest of Canada.
A Statistics Canada report released in late April found that 90 per cent of Ontario field crop farmers used a herbicide in 2017. That’s up from 70 per cent in 2011, the last time StatCan did this survey. The Canadian provincial average in 2017 was 93 per cent. The province with the highest percentage of farmers using herbicides was Manitoba at 98 per cent.
When it came to insecticides, Ontario was tops, with 35 per cent of field crop farmers using insecticides, compared to 16 per cent in 2011. The lowest users in 2017 were in Quebec at 13 per cent, while the Canadian average was 26 per cent.
For fungicide use, 38 per cent of Ontario farmers used a fungicide in 2017, compared to 25 per cent in 2011. Manitoba was the highest in 2017 at 61 per cent while Quebec was the lowest at 19 per cent. The Canadian average was 38 per cent.
