THE MARKET FOR PLANT-PROTECTION AGENTS IN 1998 97/

Since 1993 the world market of plant protection agents has grown to a turnover of 30 Mill. US$ in 1997. The annual growth rates of the last four years have been between 4,3 % and 12,5 %. The most important mark ets of plant protection agents are North America, Asia/Oceania, partic ularly China, Australia, Japan and India - and western Europe. In Germ any, domestic consumption increased in 1996 as in 1994 and 1995, but h as not yet reached the level of 1991. The differences in German pestic ides use among the farm units remained the same as in the former years : According to the Agrarbericht 1998 of German Government the use of p lant protection agents in the agricultural financial year 1995/96 rang es from 545DM/ha for farms with permanent crops over 206DM/ha LF for c ash-crops farms to 64DM/ha LF for cattle and pig farms. Pesticides app lication obviously mainly depends on the farm systems respectively cro p species proportion.