New crop-spraying technologies are more efficient than ever

The world is awash in pesticides. Fully 3m tonnes are thought to be sprayed onto crops worldwide every year, of which only a small fraction are needed. The excess chemicals are known to run off onto increasingly fragile land and seep into watercourses, with damaging environmental and health effects. The use of agrochemicals continues to grow: global sales of pesticides rose to $79bn in 2022, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights, part of a big research group. That trend could change. A number of new spraying methods employing artificial intelligence (AI) are being commercialised, promising to cut the amount of pesticides a farmer needs to spray by a colossal 90%.