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<\/a> in Congress to discuss a proposal to reduce pesticide use in Brazilian agriculture.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Divided government<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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<\/a>. \u201cI 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,\u201d says Paula.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cFor us, it’s contradictory to have a National Agroecology Plan that doesn’t tackle or deal responsibly with reducing pesticide use,\u201d says Paula.<\/p>\n 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 <\/strong>contacted the Ministry of Agriculture and the CNA, to no avail.<\/p>\n Pesticides banned abroad<\/p>\n 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. \u201cThe 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\u201d she laments.<\/p>\n 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, \u201canother best seller\u201d on the Brazilian pesticide market, is banned in at least 37 countries.<\/p>\n The book Pesticides and Chemical Colonialism<\/em>, published in Brazil in 2021 by Larissa Bombardi<\/a>, a researcher and professor at the Department of Geography at the University of S\u00e3o 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 \u20ac14.42 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 \u201ccausing alterations in the reproductive system and fetal malformations.”<\/p>\n According to the study, \u201cthe substance is widely used in crops, vegetables and fruits such as rice, lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, papaya,” among others. \u201cIn 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,\u201d says the text.<\/p>\n \u201cAnother 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,\u201d says the researcher in the publication.<\/p>\n Setbacks in Congress<\/p>\n The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock position seems to have more support in Congress, where the Parliamentary Agricultural Front \u2013 or ruralist caucus, as it is known \u2013 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<\/a> (Progressive Party), known as the \u201cking of soybeans\u201d, 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.<\/p>\n \u201cIt makes the situation much worse because the \u2018poison 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,\u201d says the activist. \u201cToday, Congress has a strong ruralist caucus, which represents interests, and a deep connection with multinationals in the chemical sector,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Federal deputy C\u00e9lia Xakriab\u00e1 (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.<\/p>\n \u201cWe 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<\/em> and agroecology advocates,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Solution and alternatives<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cToday, 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,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/images02.brasildefato.com.br\/9f450881321230074b023f4304533d5d.webp\")
\nFran Paula, a member of the Permanent Campaign Against Pesticides, at the Chamber of the Deputies. \/ Zeca Ribeiro\/Chamber of Deputies<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/images01.brasildefato.com.br\/91720467bc45d19179076d9c1c179f41.webp\")
\nIn 2022, Brazil consumed more than 800,000 tons of pesticides, equivalent to almost a third of all global consumption. \/ Leandro Taques\/MST<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/images02.brasildefato.com.br\/2d88381b3c3d5df3111b94040b82d9aa.webp\")
\nCurrent Minister of Institutional Relations, Alexandre Padilha (Workers’ Party), spoke out against pesticides when he was still a member of parliament, in 2019 \/ Vin\u00edcius Loures\/Chamber of Deputies\u00a0<\/p>\n