Lula makes a statement against excessive use of pesticides, but the issue moves forward within his government

Brasil de Fato

“It’s not possible that 80% of the pesticides banned in Germany can be sold here in Brazil as if it was a banana republic.” These aren’t the words of a healthy eating activist, but of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party). He made the statement on Tuesday (17) during a meeting with the heads of the three branches of the Brazilian government to discuss the emergency caused by the fires spreading across the country.

Lula also announced that he will convene meetings with party leaders, representatives of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa, in Portuguese), businesspeople and members of the rural caucus in Congress to discuss a proposal to reduce pesticide use in Brazilian agriculture.

After the president’s speech, a meeting of the National Commission for Agroecology and Organic Production (Cnapo, in Portuguese) was called for Friday (20), to discuss the practical effects of the declaration and the commission’s advocacy for the issue moving forward.

Divided government

Despite Lula’s incisive stance, the issue of pesticides divides the federal government. Fran Paula, a member of the National Coordination of the Permanent Campaign Against Pesticides and For Life, recalls that the National Program for the Reduction of Pesticides (Pronara, in Portuguese) is still stuck in the government, thanks to the refusal of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock to sign the project.

If, on the one hand, the Minister of Agrarian Development and Family Farming, Paulo Teixeira, has a similar stance to Lula’s on restricting the use of pesticides in Brazil, on the other hand, the intransigence of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock on the issue has frustrated civil society organizations. “I think Pronara exposes the contradictions of the Lula government. [It] exposes the very power that the agribusiness sector has been exerting under the current government,” says Paula.

Fran Paula, a member of the Permanent Campaign Against Pesticides, at the Chamber of the Deputies. / Zeca Ribeiro/Chamber of Deputies

Pronara was launched in 2013, under former president Dilma Rousseff (Workers’ Party), to guide and coordinate federal government actions to reduce pesticide use in Brazilian agriculture gradually. The ministries of Agriculture and Livestock and Agrarian Development and Family Farming are part of the Interministerial Chamber for Agroecology and Organic Production (Ciapo, in Portuguese), which brings together bodies and entities of the federal executive branch to implement the National Plan for Agroecology and Organic Production (Planapo, in Portuguese). The 2024 version of the plan has been postponed on three occasions due to the refusal of the Ministry of Agriculture to sign Pronara.

“For us, it’s contradictory to have a National Agroecology Plan that doesn’t tackle or deal responsibly with reducing pesticide use,” says Paula.

The representative of the Campaign Against Pesticides also says that in refusing to join Pronara, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock has not presented technical arguments, which could suggest an ideological stance. Behind the scenes, there are reports of lobbying by the National Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock (CNA, in Portuguese) to curb the program. Brasil de Fato contacted the Ministry of Agriculture and the CNA, to no avail.

Pesticides banned abroad

Fran Paula corroborates the president’s statement regarding the difference in the regulation of pesticides in Brazil and abroad. She recalls that the use of pesticides in Brazil that have already been banned in other countries has been made easier by Brazilian law. “The regulatory framework for pesticides in Brazil allows the entry of active ingredients that have already been banned in other countries for putting human health and the environment at risk” she laments.

According to the Permanent Campaign Against Pesticides, acephate, the third most consumed chemical in Brazil, has already been banned in at least 30 countries. Atrazine, “another best seller” on the Brazilian pesticide market, is banned in at least 37 countries.

The book Pesticides and Chemical Colonialism, published in Brazil in 2021 by Larissa Bombardi, a researcher and professor at the Department of Geography at the University of São Paulo (USP) shows that, in 2021, all the countries of the European Union exported almost 2 million tons of pesticides to the rest of the world that contained substances banned by the bloc itself, amounting to €14.42 billion. Mercosur received more than 6,840 tons of these products. The book mentions some of the substances banned in the EU but released in Brazil, including tebuconazole, an insecticide banned in the European bloc for “causing alterations in the reproductive system and fetal malformations.”

In 2022, Brazil consumed more than 800,000 tons of pesticides, equivalent to almost a third of all global consumption. / Leandro Taques/MST

According to the study, “the substance is widely used in crops, vegetables and fruits such as rice, lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, papaya,” among others. “In addition to being allowed in Brazil, the tolerated residue limit of tebuconazole in drinking water is 1,800 times higher than that established in the European Union,” says the text.

“Another example of the disparity in authorized quantities is glyphosate, the country’s best-selling pesticide, which is considered possibly carcinogenic to humans by the World Health Organization (WHO). In Brazil, the authorized residue of this herbicide in drinking water is 5,000 times higher than in the European Union,” says the researcher in the publication.

Setbacks in Congress

The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock position seems to have more support in Congress, where the Parliamentary Agricultural Front – or ruralist caucus, as it is known – has around 290 members, most of whom are opposed to any restrictions on the use of pesticides. In 2023, parliament approved Bill 1459/2022, by Senator Blairo Maggi (Progressive Party), known as the “king of soybeans”, which made the registration of new agrotoxins more flexible. President Lula even vetoed some parts of the approved law, but Congress overturned the vetoes and enacted law 14.785/2023.

“It makes the situation much worse because the ‘poison package’ [how the law came to be known among people who oppose it] even allows the registration of substances with carcinogenic potential, which was prohibited in the previous law,” says the activist. “Today, Congress has a strong ruralist caucus, which represents interests, and a deep connection with multinationals in the chemical sector,” she said.

Federal deputy Célia Xakriabá (Socialism and Freedom Party) has taken the issue to parliament, also addressing the harms of the extensive use of pesticides on Indigenous populations, and arguing that there needs to be a serious and democratic dialog about the problem.

“We know that the rural caucus has historically defended the interests of big agribusiness corporations, often to the detriment of people’s health and well-being and ecological balance. We must talk, above all, in a democratic and open approach, listening not only to the economic sector, but also to social movements, Indigenous peoples, quilombolas and agroecology advocates,” she said.

Current Minister of Institutional Relations, Alexandre Padilha (Workers’ Party), spoke out against pesticides when he was still a member of parliament, in 2019 / Vinícius Loures/Chamber of Deputies 

Solution and alternatives

According to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in 2022, Brazil consumed more than 800,000 tons of pesticides, equivalent to almost a third of all global consumption, and is the world record holder in the use of these kinds of chemical products for agricultural production. 

“Today, Brazil is one of the biggest consumers of pesticides in the world, which has serious consequences for the health of the population, for the environment and especially for Indigenous peoples and traditional communities, who are the first to feel the impacts of this destructive model,” she said.

Paula recalls that there is already another bill (6670/2016) that seeks to restrict the use of pesticides in the country, establishing the National Policy for the Reduction of Pesticides (Pnara, in Portuguese). Proposed by the Brazilian Association of Collective Health (Abrasco, in Portuguese), the bill was approved by the Constitution and Justice and Legislative Participation committees, but has been on hold since 2017, awaiting a decision by the plenary. 

For Xakriabá, if there is a guarantee of dialog and the participation of society in building solutions, there will be no need to “reinvent the wheel”. “Traditional Indigenous farming systems, for example, are a model of how we can produce food in a healthy way, preserving biodiversity and facing climate crises. I hope that this discussion will take into account these solutions, which already exist and offer a real alternative to the abusive use of pesticides,” she said.