Largest producer of DDT

Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane was first synthesised in 1874 and discovered to be a highly-effective insecticide in 1939 by Swiss scientist Paul Hermann Müller, who was later awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. It was eventually banned in the USA in 1972 for agricultural use based on evidence of its harmful effects on the environment. The international Stockholm Convention treaty banned the worldwide use of DDT as an agricultural pesticide, although it is still permitted to control disease such as malaria and bubonic plague. When China ceased production in 2007, only India and Korea DPR remained as a producer of DDT, producing 6,344 and 5 tonnes respectively in 2007.