Eating with a Conscience

Choosing organic food to protect health and the environment

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Below are the pesticides with established tolerances (residue limits for pesticides used in the U.S. or by countries exporting to the U.S.) for barley. While not all the pesticides on the list are applied to all barley, there is no way to tell which pesticides are applied to any given piece of conventional produce on your store shelf. You may consider talking to the farmers at your local farmers market about the pesticides they use, but eating organic is the only way to know for sure.


Pesticide Tolerances —Health and Environmental Effects: The database shows that while barley grown with toxic chemicals show low pesticide residues on the finished commodity, there are 58 pesticides with established tolerance for barley, 22 are acutely toxic creating a hazardous environment for farmworkers, 52 are linked to chronic health problems (such as cancer), 15 contaminate streams or groundwater, and 49 are poisonous to wildlife.

Pollinator Impacts: In addition to habitat loss due to the expansion of agricultural and urban areas, the database shows that there are 16 pesticides used on barley that are considered toxic to honey bees and other insect pollinators. For more information on how to protect pollinators from pesticides, see Beyond Pesticides' BEE Protective webpage.

  • This crop is NOT dependent on pollinators.
  • This crop is NOT foraged by pollinators.




Acetochlor (C, SW, W, B)

Alachlor (SW, GW, W)

Azoxystrobin (A, SW, GW, W)

Boscalid (C, W)

Bromoxynil (A, C, GW, W)

Captan (A, C, W)

Carboxin (C, W)

Carfentrazone-ethyl (W)

Clopyralid (A, C, GW, W)


Cryolite (C)

Cyfluthrin (A, C, W, B)

Dicamba (A, C, GW, W)

Difenoconazole (C, W)

Diflubenzuron (C, W)

Diuron (C, SW, W, B)

Endothall (A, C, W)

Flufenacet (C, W)

Fluometuron (C, W, B)

Fluridone (C, W)

Fluroxypyr (C, W)

Imazalil (A, C, W)

Imidacloprid (A, C, W, B)

Ipconazole (C)

Lambda-cyhalothrin (A, C, W, B)


Mancozeb (C, W, B)

MCPA (C, GW, W, B)

Metalaxyl (A, C, W)

Metconazole (C, W)

Methomyl (A, C, W, B)

Methyl bromide (A, C, W)

Metolachlor (C, SW, GW, W)

Metribuzin (A, C, SW, W)

Myclobutanil (C, W)


Phosphine (A, C)

Propiconazole (A, C, W)


Pyraclostrobin (C, W)

Pyrethrins (C, W, B)

Pyriproxyfen (C, W)

Quizalofop-ethyl (C, W)

Spinetoram (C, B)

Spinosad (C, W, B)

Spiromesifen (W)

Sulfentrazone (C, W)

Sulfuryl fluoride (A, C)

Tebuconazole (A, C)

Terrazole (C, W)

Thiamethoxam (C, B)

Triadimenol (A, C)

Triallate (C, W)

Trifloxystrobin (C, W)

Trifloxysulfuron (C)

Trifluralin (C, SW, GW, W, LT)

Zinc phosphide
