Brazil imports as many pesticides as in 2019. Almost 335 thousand tons of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides landed in the country from January to December.
The volume is 16% higher than in 2018 and is a record for the historical series that began in 1997, according to data from the Ministry of Economy.
Import Growth
Data from Ibama (Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) show that in 2018. Although the most recent data available, 549 thousand tons of products were sold in the national territory - an increase of 1.8% compared to the previous year.
Larissa Mies Bombardi, professor at the Department of Geography at USP (University of São Paulo) and author of Connections with the European Union. Although she points to the expansion of the area of cultivation in the country as the reason for the demand.
According to her, soybean has increased its cultivated area by almost 100% in the last ten years, and sugarcane, around 50%. “There has been a very significant increase in the cultivated area in a short period of time”, says Bombardi.
In the case of soybeans and corn, practically all production is based on transgenic seeds that are resistant to herbicides.
In the case of 2019, the researcher points to the record release of pesticides by Jair Bolsonaro's government as a possible reason for the double-digit increase.
Last year, 474 new pesticides were registered in Brazil, the highest number in the last 14 years. Since 2017, this annual release has already exceeded 400 products. Today, the country has 2,247 registered pesticides.
Volume of Imports
The Ministry of Agriculture states that it is not possible to establish a relationship between the release and the volume of imports, since the new products can be manufactured by national or foreign companies.
Today, imports represent more than half of the volume of pesticides sold in the country and, among the leading foreign companies in Brazil, are the Swiss Syngenta, in addition to the German companies Bayer and Basf.
Syngenta mentions the country as a highlight in pesticide sales in 2019 in its global report on the year.
“The strong growth in sales volume in Brazil more than offset the impact of adverse weather that delayed the harvest and reduced the area under cultivation in the United States,” the company said in the document.
According to the Swiss company, sales of the fungicide Elatus in Brazil more than doubled last year. However, there was also strong growth in the insecticides Cruiser and Fortenza.
Bayer mentions in its third-quarter report – the most recent available – an increase of 72% in sales in Latin America and says that the country was responsible for the increase.
“Growth in this region came from the increased volume of herbicides, fungicides and insecticides in Brazil,” says the company, which also mentions greater gains after the registration of the Xpro fungicide.
Some pesticides sold by companies are banned in their own countries of origin, according to a survey by researcher Bombardi (such as products such as Fipronil, Chlorfenapyr and Thiodicarb).
Pesticides
Even so, the Minister of Agriculture, Tereza Cristina, denies that Brazil's imports are lenient in international comparisons. "Absolutely not. So if you approve more products, theoretically you are approving products that are less toxic than those already on the market," she said.
Although for Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency), the new ingredients are generally products with a better toxicological profile and control pests with a smaller number of applications.
Sindiveg (National Union of the Plant Protection Products Industry) says that, due to climate challenges and pests, the registration of new products in 2019 was positive, as the law that deals with agricultural pesticides in Brazil was created in 1989 and therefore would not have kept up with the various developments in agriculture.
In Congress, a bill is being processed that establishes the National Policy for the Reduction of Agrochemicals and is facing resistance from ruralists, whose lobby is one of the strongest in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.