[State of the Industry] Insects and Their $57 Billion Payroll

Pest management professionals now have more than 57 billion reasons to love insects: That’s how many dollars they contribute to the U.S. economy, according to conservative estimates by Cornell University Entomologist John Losey and Mace Vaughan, conservation director of Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.

Native insects are food for wildlife, which supports the $50 billion recreation industry, supply crop pollination valued at $3 billion, and also clean up grazing lands — yielding a $380 million savings for ranchers, the study cited. In addition, beneficial insects provide $4.5 billion worth of pest control.

The study didn’t look at the economic value of controlling structural and urban insects. But according to research from Specialty Products Consultants, the structural pest control industry generated an estimated $6.628 billion in total service revenue last year.

The goal of the study was to identify insects’ positive contributions and encourage behaviors that support biodiversity, said Vaughan. As for pests like termites, cockroaches and ants, it was “hard to assign justifiable economic values,” he said.

There’s no clear way to get a value of termites “that wouldn’t touch a house,” he said. But termites play an important role in recycling nutrients in forests, which economically benefits industries like forest production, he said. And although cockroaches have evolved to live in homes, “in the wild, they too have their role,” such as recycling nutrients and eating debris. Ants move water and nutrients nearer to plants’ roots, which aids growth. “How to assign a value to that is pretty tricky,” Vaughan said.

The pest management industry’s focus on targeted control products and techniques that impact fewer non-target pests is to be commended, said Vaughan. The study “shows just how important that trend is in pest control.” He encouraged professionals to continue to educate homeowners that “most of our bugs out there are good.”