Greenpeace: “One in Two Brazilian Fruits Contains Pesticides Banned in the EU”

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – As reported by Greenpeace Austria, the environmental organization has detected banned pesticides in mangoes, papayas, and melons imported from Brazil.

An independent laboratory determined during investigations that one in every two fruits was contaminated with pesticides that are banned in the European Union.

“Our test shows an alarming cycle: European agrochemical companies make millions of dollars in South America with spraying agents that have already been banned in Europe with good reason. Sprayed locally, often over large areas by aircraft, they have a catastrophic impact on people and nature. In the end, we find residues of these pesticides on our plates,” says Sebastian Matei, agricultural expert at Greenpeace.

President Jair Bolsonaro’s government has so far released 826 new crop pesticides in Brazil – in less than two years. The number of agricultural workers in Brazil with pesticide poisoning is said to be rising, but companies are allegedly only reporting some of the cases.

In a new round of approvals in 2020 under new legislation, the government recently authorized the marketing of 45 more new pesticides, says Marcos Pedlowski, a Brazilian scientific critic in his blog “Agrochemicals Observatory”.

A total of 52 percent of the products approved by the government are produced in China. As one of the country’s main buyers of soy, it supplies agrochemicals for lucrative farming in Brazil.

Hazardous pesticides are suspected of hormonal action, carcinogenicity, or mutagenicity. Pesticides used in Brazil, such as Ametryn, Fipronil, and Thiamethoxam are banned in the European Union, according to Pedlowski, professor at the State University of Northern Rio de Janeiro.

European companies, such as BASF, Bayer, and Syngenta, headquartered in Germany and Switzerland, are now deliberately shifting the production of these controversial pesticides to China, Spain, and Italy.

As far as the toxicity of some pesticides is concerned, recent changes in the ANVISA health monitoring authority’s criteria have created a “strange situation to say the least,” writes Pedlowski.

For products approved in Brazil, such as Atrazine and Acephate, which are known to be toxic and are banned in other countries for their risk to human health, Brazil seemingly now deems human toxicity to be lower than environmental toxicity.