It is false that Europe releases pesticides banned in Brazil

A recurrent criticism of NGOs, environmentalists and leftists to the approval of new pesticides is that the Europeans would be sending here products that are banned in the Old Continent, spawning in Brazil outdated molecules that are dangerous to health and the environment.

For specialists in plant pathology interviewed by Gazeta do Povo, this narrative reveals a lack of knowledge of the facts and disconnection from reality.

José Otávio Menten, a professor at Esalq/USP, points out 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. “What we import, as a rule, are technical products or active ingredients. They are formulated in industries and factories that we have here in Brazil. And they are very high quality factories, with cleanliness, employee care and technology of international standards”, emphasizes Menten.

According to Caio Carbonari, a professor at the Plant Protection Department at the State University of São Paulo (UNESP), the molecules used in the country undergo analysis that is among the most thorough in the world, involving safety assessments for consumers, workers and the environment. These are technologies that, due to the bureaucracy of regulatory bodies, end up taking eight years on average to be approved in Brazil, against two to three years in competing countries. Streamlining this process is one of the points of the Agricultural Defensive Bill, under analysis in the Senate, and called the “poison package” by the left.

Brazil takes time to approve products already used in other countries

Carbonari assures that the reality is exactly the opposite of what is affirmed by NGOs and environmentalists. “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”, he highlights, citing as an example the herbicide Paraquat, banned here in 2020, but which continues to be used in Argentina and the United States.

Another confusion that is made, by ignorance or bad faith, is to claim that Brazil is the world’s largest consumer of pesticides. Menten notes that Brazil is the biggest market, due to its large cultivated area and the fact that it produces two to three crops a year in the same area, against just one of most competitors. “The correct indicator is the amount that was used per unit area or the amount used for each ton of food. We are not the biggest consumers, even though the problem of pests in tropical countries is more important than in temperate countries”, he explains.