Recently launched, the Atlas of Pesticides compiles work by Brazilian and foreign scientists on the impacts of pesticides on soil, water and society.Brazil tops the list of countries that import and consume the most agrochemicals in the world: There are more than 3,000 registered agrochemicals, 49% of which are considered highly dangerous to health.Although the European Union has approved measures to control the use of pesticides, the atlas reveals that toxic residues have been found in the food consumed there — a reflection of the contamination present in the commodities exported by countries like Brazil.
Brazil tops the list of the countries that import and consume the most pesticides in the world. At the end of 2023, Bill 1459/2022, known among environmentalists as the “Poison Bill,” was approved, making the use of pesticides more flexible throughout the country.
More than 3,000 agrochemicals are registered in Brazil today, a figure that doubled between 2010 and 2021. Of this total, 49% are considered highly dangerous, as shown by data published in the recently released Atlas of Pesticides, published by the Brazilian branch of the German Heinrich Böll Foundation.
By compiling unprecedented data on effects of certain products in the soil, air and water, the atlas sheds light on mainly community issues, such as food insecurity, poverty and the influence of companies in the industry on public policies — as well as studies on the impact of pesticides in various fields, such as economic, ecological and social.
The graph above shows that pesticide residues were found in more than half of the samples of 14 foods; 23% are above the maximum residue limit allowed by Anvisa, the Brazilian Regulatory Health Agency. Among the most contaminated are peppers, carrots and tomatoes. Image reproduced from the Atlas of Pesticides.
“One of the objectives of the map is to make the work of researchers from all over the country visible,” says Marcelo Montenegro, coordinator of the foundation’s socioenvironmental justice programs and projects in Brazil. For him, the paradigm shift can happen when the regional perspective is taken into account. “We have to think from a local, environmental perspective, rather than an economic one. Today, we continue to use pesticides to solve the problem, but not the root of the problem.”
In the atlas, researcher Julia Dolce, co-editor of the publication, writes about the failings of this policy implemented in Brazil in the 1960s and draws parallels with contemporary problems. One of them is the recent terms and readjustments to make products “greener” — a rebranding, a makeup for the marketing of these harmful inputs for agriculture.
At the same time, hunger, a ghost that has haunted Brazil in recent years, has returned, affecting 15.5% of the population — an indication that the increase in food production favored by pesticides has not been able to combat food insecurity, as shown in the graph below, produced with data from the PENSSAN Network and published in the Atlas of Pesticides.
Regional research, global perspectives
Through articles by activists and environmentalists from various biomes in Brazil, the Heinrich Böll Foundation aims to guide the public debate on the revision and implementation of regulatory policies for the consumption of pesticides.
Today, for example, the amount of glyphosate residue found in drinking water samples in Brazil is 5,000 times higher than in the European Union. Used to control weeds, glyphosate is harmful to pollinating species such as bees — one of the biggest and most recent problems for Brazilian fauna.
“Herbicides such as glyphosate and 2,4-D cause a reduction in living organisms in the soil,” says researcher Francileia Paula de Castro. “Research carried out with earthworms exposed to concentrations of glyphosate for incubation periods has shown a reduction in weight, with a loss of up to 50%, reproductive arrest and notorious morphological changes, and [these organisms] may even disappear from plantations that use this active ingredient.”
As the Atlas of Pesticides reminds us, glyphosate is potentially carcinogenic to humans, just as other widely sold herbicides also cause serious damage to health. Atrazine, for example, is a hormone disruptor, and paraquat can cause fatal poisoning.
Public health researcher Aline do Monte Gurgel, in her article published in the atlas on the presence of pesticides in water, shows how the issue begins before life itself, in women’s wombs: “There is also a gender aspect to these intoxications, since women have suffered the consequences in their own bodies: either from pesticide residues found in breast milk, or from cases of miscarriages as a result of exposure to pesticides, or from giving birth to babies with fetal malformations and/or who show precocious puberty in the first years of life.”
Throughout the issue, maps based on research by institutes, with data checked by Agência Lupa, show various bottlenecks in agribusiness, such as the contamination of corn by pesticides. Since 96% of corn production today is transgenic, Castro brings up the dangers of cross-contamination in the cultivation of the grain, which is exported to various countries around the world.
In recent years, the European Union has approved a series of measures to control the use of agrochemicals on its plantations without, however, ceasing to produce them on a large scale. Exporting supplies to countries in the Global South is a double-edged sword.
A recent survey, compiled in the Atlas of Pesticides, shows how residues of pesticides banned in countries like France and Germany are found in foods consumed in local diets. “Brazilian commodities enter European soil with a kind of consent,” warns Montenegro, citing one of the most controversial measures of the Rotterdam Convention.
“These companies end up producing and exporting to countries like Brazil, but the impact goes back to the northern countries. It’s a global problem because there are few international processes in which this issue can be debated. We need a global framework to regulate the issue of pesticides,” Montenegro says.
To complement the point, researcher Katrin Wenz, in her article in the atlas, shows the impact of these substances on the pollen and nectar of plants treated with pesticides, citing a study from 2017: “75% of all honey samples from around the world contained at least one neonicotinoid, which is known to be harmful to bees.”
Banner image: Aerial spraying of pesticides. Photo courtesy of Gisele Fredericce.
Citation:
Alford, A., & Krupke, C. H. (2017). Translocation of the neonicotinoid seed treatment clothianidin in maize. PLOS ONE, 12(3), e0173836. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173836
This story was reported by Mongabay’s Brazil team and first published here on our Brazil site on Jan 25, 2024.
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