Carlos Fávaro ignores the PT’s position and releases new agricultural pesticides

Since the beginning of the year, the Ministry of Agriculture has already approved the registration of 179 agricultural pesticides, indicated for controlling pests and diseases in cotton, coffee, peas, barley, soybeans, corn, rice, peanuts, chickpeas, potatoes, beans and eucalyptus, among other cultures.

The numbers draw attention because the release of new pesticides was one of the points most criticized by the PT and its allies in the agricultural policy of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL). In the previous government, almost 2,200 registrations were approved, against around 1,300 in the Dilma/Temer period and 600 in the second government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT). For scholars of phytosanitary and food safety, the increase in the number of registrations, lamented by the left, is actually a positive point.

“It was to be celebrated. It means that we are putting in place a new tool, which in general is already in use in many of the main agricultural countries in the world, and which is arriving late for us, but will contribute towards accessing a safer product than those that are already in use. market”, evaluates Caio Carbonari, professor at the São Paulo State University (Unesp) and doctor in plant protection.

Minister on a collision course with the PT

Opposite and antagonistic views on the approval of new agricultural defensives coexist in the Lula government. At the launch of Plano Safra, the PT said that he had not previously met the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock, Carlos Fávaro, whom he currently sees as “one of those good things that happened in a government that is not a club of friends”.

The coming weeks and months will tell whether this perception of Lula will last or fade when the minister enters a collision course with the Workers’ Party, the president’s party. This should not take long to happen, because Fávaro assumed a commitment with the agribusiness caucus to defend the PL of Agricultural Defensives, the Temporal Framework of Indigenous Lands and the right to private property – among other themes in which the minister’s convictions clash with PT positions.

For the PT and environmentalists, the approval of registration of pesticides continues to be seen as an extension of the “poison package”, as they call Bill 6299/02 on safe foods, approved in the Chamber of Deputies and which updates legislation of more of 30 years.

The PL awaits a vote in the Senate and is one of the priorities of the Agricultural Parliamentary Front (FPA) and Fávaro. In the Chamber, the PT bench voted overwhelmingly against the project. Deputy Nilto Tatto (PT-SP) said that the initiative only worsens the condition of Brazil, which would already be “known in the world for the poison on the table and the environmental contamination by pesticides”.

Defensives: problem is politicization of technical subject

The deputy’s assertion is contradicted by the fact that Brazil is the second largest agricultural exporter in the world, complying with phytosanitary requirements of more than 190 countries.

For Carbonari, the problem lies in politicizing a strictly technical matter. The confusion starts when the registration of a new commercial product and the registration of a new active ingredient are put in the same basket.

Most of the registrations granted annually in the country are for generic defensives, such as medicines from pharmacies, in which laboratories launch products with new clothes based on an active ingredient that is already known.

“It doesn’t make much sense and there is no concern about delaying the arrival of these new products, because they will effectively contribute to increasing the competitiveness of agriculture, through competition and price reduction”, underlines Carbonari.

José Otávio Menten, professor of plant pathology at Esalq/USP argues along the same lines. “It is a very big mistake to think that consumption will be greater if there are more products registered. What there will be is more choice on the part of the farmer and more competition between companies to see who offers the best products ”, he emphasizes.

As for new molecules, that is, state-of-the-art technologies to combat pests and diseases, there is no rush to approve registrations in Brazil. On the contrary: it is the delay that worries, since here waiting for analyzes can take three times as long as in competing countries, which is between two and three years.

Country still approves few new molecules against pests

Of the pesticide approvals made during the Bolsonaro government, 43% dealt with new commercial products whose active ingredients were already registered, while 52.2% fell into the category of generics, as they also used principles already in circulation in their formulas. Only 4.4% referred to new molecules. Ideally, for the environment, production and health, this last index should be higher.

“The data show that newer products are better, both from an agronomic point of view, as they are more efficient and selective, but also from a toxicological point of view. They are less toxic products, since the requirements to obtain registrations are increasing, and they also have less impact on the environment, since current products are used in much smaller doses than in the past”, argues Menten.

Heard by the Senate Agriculture Commission, researcher Caio Carbonari presented an analysis of the environmental impact of molecules registered between 1990 and 1999 with molecules authorized from the year 2000. There was an average reduction of 29% in the average dosage used per product. In assessing the impact on rural workers, final consumers and the environment, the risk reductions were 28%, 29% and 40%, respectively.

“When we compare products developed in the 70’s and 80’s and which are still on the market today with those awaiting registration in Brazil, we have a reduction in the application dose of more than 90%. And obviously the dose has a very strong relationship with the risk, with the exposure, and this reduction is an extremely positive and important factor”, points out Carbonari.

Although the active ingredients have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, the researcher stresses that “in general they are safer for the environment, for the applicator and for the consumer than the average of the products that are already on the market”.

It is false that Europe releases pesticides banned in Brazil

A recurrent criticism of the approval of new pesticides is that the Europeans are sending here products that are prohibited on the Old Continent, spawning in Brazil outdated molecules that are dangerous to health and the environment.

“That is not true at all. Brazil does not use products that are prohibited in the world. Quite the contrary, we have products that were very important for our agriculture, which were banned and left our market, but are still in use in many parts of the world, including the US and other important agricultures”, highlights Carbonari, citing the herbicide as an example. Paraquat, banned here in 2020.

In most cases, Brazil does not import commercial products, but active ingredients that are formulated in local factories.

Menten, from Esalq, recalls that agriculture in temperate and tropical zones is different, and therefore it is natural that there are many products used in Europe that are not used in Brazil, and vice versa.

“The plagues we have here, the cultures we have here are different from the cultures in Europe. For example, we have soybeans and cotton in large quantities, and they are cultures that practically do not exist in Europe and in countries with a colder climate. On the other hand, there are some crops, cereals, mainly wheat, or olive trees, which have a number of products registered in Europe and which here in Brazil is much smaller, because the cultivated areas and the presence of diversity of pests is also smaller,” he points out.

PSTU and PT criticize release of new pesticides

On the political spectrum of the left, the PSTU has already declared war on Minister Fávaro. “The release of more poison on our table shows that the Lula government is committed to agribusiness to the core. After all, it is the production of agricultural commodities that demands the massive use of pesticides. The continuous expansion of soy and sugarcane, among other monocultures, was accompanied by the explosion in the use of pesticides in the country”, states the PSTU.

The PT, the president’s party, is not far behind. On its website, the following headline appeared when the PL for Agricultural Defensives was approved in the Chamber: “In defense of life, PT voted against the ‘poison package’”.

In response to the report by People’s Gazette, the Ministry of Agriculture informed that it continues to comply with the rite of the registration analysis process provided for in Decree No. 4074, of January 4, 2002, and its amendments (art. 15). Deadlines for granting registrations follow a “complex and rigorous prism of a rite of analysis involving ANVISA, IBAMA and MAPA”. “The entire infralegal framework prioritizes products considered to have a low impact. We also point out that the federal agencies involved in the registration of pesticides have a four-year period to analyze pending processes for registering technical products, premixes, pesticides and the like, through specific procedures to be established by the agriculture, health and environment bodies. Therefore, the continuity of the analyzes is a result of legal determination”, says the note from the ministry.

Among other changes, PL 6299/02 provides that the Ministry of Agriculture will define the products that must have priority for analysis. If, within two years, there is no response to the application for registration of a new chemical pesticide, the registering agency will be obliged to grant temporary registration, provided that the product in question is already used in at least three member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ( OECD).