In 2018 Brazil Used 60K Tons Of Pesticides Banned In EU As Toxic, Sold By BASF, Bayer, Syngenta

[hatrack]

Brazil is the world’s largest user of pesticides, including more than a dozen considered highly hazardous, thanks to permissive legislation that allows some of Europe’s biggest agrochemical companies to continue selling products that have been banned in their home market.

The toxicity of these pesticides has raised concerns: 22 of them are classified as highly hazardous pesticides, or HHPs, by the Pesticide Action Network (PAN), a global coalition that advocates for eco-friendly alternatives to chemical pesticides. The classification is based on criteria developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO): in humans, they can be toxic to the reproductive system, damaging to DNA, or carcinogenic, as well as fatal to bees and other pollinators.

Even though these products have been banned in other countries, companies like Bayer, BASF and Syngenta make millions of dollars selling them in Brazil. According to IBAMA, the Brazilian environmental agency, more than 63,000 tonnes of just 10 of these 22 pesticides were sold in 2018. Sales of the other 12 products were not reported because of commercial confidentiality; IBAMA only discloses data on active ingredients manufactured by three or more companies. It also doesn’t break down the amounts sold by each company.

EDIT

The report shows that half of the 24 ingredients sold by Bayer and BASF in Brazil are highly hazardous. One of them is Fipronil, an active ingredient used in insecticides marketed by BASF. The product entered PAN’s list for its fatal effects on bees. In the 1990s, it was blamed for a massive bee die-off in France. In 2017, millions of chicken eggs were contaminated by Fipronil in Belgium and the Netherlands. That same year, the product was banned from the entire EU for posing “high acute risks for bees [when used as] seed treatment in maize,” according to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). In Brazil, beekeepers list it as the main cause of the deaths of more than 500 million bees in 2018-2019. According to IBAMA, 1,600 tonnes were sold in the country in 2018 alone, to be used in the cultivation of cotton, potatoes, soybeans and corn.

EDIT

https://news.mongabay.com/2020/09/for-european-chemical-giants-brazil-is-an-open-market-for-toxic-pesticides-banned-at-home/

[Ferrets are Cool]

1. Anything for $$

The Greedy Capitalist Way.