“The UK is exporting its pesticide footprint to other countries.” This is how the British newspaper The Guardian begins a text in which it publishes a new report by the Pesticide Action Network UKpublished this Wednesday (23). Click here to read the full report.
Based on the study, the report shows that the increase in trade with Brazil is “financing” here the use of pesticides that are prohibited in the territory of Great Britain.
Environmentalists consulted by the report of the The Guardian said that the increase in foreign trade with Brazil in the post-Brexit period (the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union’s economic bloc) could encourage the use of these pesticides and contribute to the destruction of the Brazilian environment, especially the Amazon.
:: Carrefour is convicted of selling food with banned pesticides or above the limit ::
“The UK Secretary of Commerce is promoting trade with Brazil as ‘real opportunities to advance green trade’. Meanwhile, the overuse of highly toxic pesticides in Brazil is contributing to the destruction of the Amazon and other critical ecosystems, contaminating water and poisoning rural workers and communities,” Pesticide Action’s head of policy and campaigns told the report. Network UK, Josie Cohen.
“However, the government has not provided details on how it will ensure that Brazilian food sold on UK shelves does not contribute to the global climate and nature crisis,” concluded Cohen.
:: Rapporteur of the PL do Veneno reached an agreement for a debt of R$ 1.5 million with Syngenta ::
contradictions
In an interview, Vicki Hird, coordinator of the sustainable agriculture campaign at Sustain, said that the United Kingdom promotes campaigns valuing the reduction in the use of pesticides in its territory. According to her, however, it seems to have no problems in “exporting” the environmental and human health impacts to Brazil.
“Most UK consumers have no idea that some of the meat they are eating has been fed on soy grown with highly toxic chemicals. At the moment, the UK government is speaking well of reducing the harm caused by pesticides. in the UK, but seems to have no problem exporting our environmental and human health footprints to Brazil,” said Hird.
The report also points out the possibility that the impacts will deepen with the approval of new legal rules to regulate the use of pesticides in Brazil, such as the Poison Package. O Brazil de facto has shown that this bill makes the use of pesticides even more flexible and is “sponsored” by ruralists and agribusiness representatives.
:: Chamber of Deputies approves “Poison Package”, in a nod to agribusiness ::
“The Brazilian government is currently promoting a bill that would reduce laws to protect human and environmental health from pesticides. Even without this new package of laws, Brazilian farmers can use almost twice as many hazardous pesticides as those in the UK, including the lethal herbicide Paraquat, which has caused tens of thousands of deaths worldwide from acute poisoning, and neonicotinoids, which are toxic to bees.”
The UK government recently proposed a bill that will punish companies that have deforestation in their supply chains, including farmers in the Amazon who clear the rainforest. However, there is no such law for pesticides.
Editing: Rodrigo Durao Coelho
