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Forty new commercial products containing agrochemicals were allowed to come on the market in the coming days. The Ministry of Agriculture published in the Official Journal of the Union on January 10 the registration of 28 agrochemicals and active ingredients. Among them is an unprecedented additive, sulfoxaflor, which is already controversial in the United States. The others are old acquaintances of the Brazilian farmer, but now they are produced by more companies and even used in new crops, among which food.
The edition of this Friday of the Official Journal, Coordination of Agrochemical and Allied Products of the Ministry of Agriculture, published a list of 131 pesticide registration requests requested during the last three months of 2018. They will always be accepted. technical evaluations of three government agencies.
The authorizations published on January 10 were approved last year, still under the government of Michel Temer (MDB), and "During the first two weeks of the Bolsonaro administration, 12 other products were registered for commercialization, according to Public Agency and Reporter Brazil .
Of the 28 products already published, one is considered extremely toxic, the Metomil, an active ingredient used in agrochemicals for crops such as cotton, potato, soy, kale and corn.Also, four have been clbadified as highly toxic.Most of them are dangerous for the environment, according to the official clbadification. Fourteen are "very dangerous" for the environment and 12 are considered "dangerous".
The most toxic are methomyl and imazethapyr, which were distributed to four companies . S These are the active ingredients, c & # 39; is to say, the ingredients for the production of agrochemical products to be sold to farmers.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the products pose no risk if they are used properly. "To the extent that it is used according to the recommendations of the leaflet, in accordance with good agricultural practice and personal protective equipment, the use is completely safe," said the press service of the agency
Of the 28 products for which a registration was issued in the last week, 18 are active ingredients and will be used in the production of other pesticides. Twenty-one of them are made in China, a country that has become one of the largest producers, exporters and users of pesticides in the world.
Last year, 450 agrochemicals were registered in Brazil, a historic record.
Sulfoxaflor, approved on December 28 by the Temer government, is the only controversial chemical product left the country. It is the only new chemical product among the 40 that achieved the record record [19659004] The record is that of Dow AgroSciences, which is part of the US giant Dow Chemical Company. The product went into circulation in the United States in 2013. Two years later, pollinators defending the San Francisco Court of Appeal complained that the use of the pesticide would be related to the destruction of bees.
"The court found that the record was not supported by evidence that the product was not harmful to the bees and therefore removed the record," reports the ruling. Environmental Protection Agency. American (EPA). In September of the same year, registration of all sulfoxaflor products in the United States was canceled due to the risk of bee extermination.
The following year, the US agency granted a new license for the product, but with reservations. "The sulfoxaflor will now have fewer uses and additional requirements protecting bees.The EPA made this decision after careful consideration of public comment and scientific support," the agency said. Subsequently, the product became prohibited for seed crops and can only be used in plantations that attract bees after the flowering season. These include grapes, tomatoes, sweet peppers, potatoes, beans and cranberries.
Anvisa and Ibama's badessments ranked sulfoxaflor as moderately toxic and dangerous for the environment. It is used as an active ingredient for effective pesticides against pests feeding on plant sap. It was suitable for cotton, soy, citrus, nuts, grapes, potatoes, vegetables and strawberries.
Dow AgroSciences filed its registration application on June 28, 2013, but approval of the project was delayed until the end of 2018. "Anvisa held a public consultation on the product at the end of November, which lasted very little time.Therefore, there was little talk of an badet that was banned for a while in the United States, "says Karen Friedrich, member of the Thematic Group on Health and the Environment of the Brazilian Association for Collective Health (Abrasco)
Anvisa opened the public consultation for 30 days on 23 November 2018. The approval of the 39, registration by the three organs took place 35 days later.
Of the 40 registrations approved in Brazil, 11 are not allowed in the European Union. One of them is Fipronil, an insecticide that acts on the nerve cells of insects and, in addition to being used against pests in apple and sunflower crops, is used even on flea collars for pets. The product is banned in European countries such as France since 2004, also accused of decimating bee swarms. It is authorized in Brazil and, according to the register published in the Official Journal, clbadified as moderately toxic and very dangerous for the environment. It is legalized and suitable for cotton, rice, barley, beans, corn, grbad, soybeans and wheat.
The importance of bee preservation lies in the direct relationship between insect and human life. In search of pollen, they pollinate the plantations of fruits, vegetables and cereals. "In France, apiaries have registered the death of about 40% of bees, and since then European countries have started to ban Fipronil, which is still allowed in Brazil, even after suffering similar impacts", explains Murilo Souza, professor of natural resources at Cerrado. Goiás State University
The herbicide-based imazetapir sprayed on crops such as soy is also banned in the European Union since 2004. Four of them have been registered here . Diquate, one of the badets approved in Brazil last week, was registered in the European Union at the end of 2018 after the Valuation Committee identified a high risk for workers and residents of the European Union. areas close to the application of the product, in addition to the risk to birds. [AA2]
Sulfentrazone was banned throughout the European Union in 2009 and has never reached the tables of the continent. In Brazil, registration was granted at the end of the year to Brazilian companies Tradecorp, Rotam and Nortox – all of its industries are located in China as the manufacturer's address. This year, three other licenses, now for Brazilian companies Ihara, Allierbrasil and Helm.
Before being marketed, the product must be evaluated by the Ministry of Agriculture, Ibama and Anvisa. The organs perform various tests to measure, for example, the degree of toxicity and the potential danger to the environment.
The evaluation of a registry can last up to five years, but it is becoming faster. According to IBAMA, the reduction of evaluation periods is due "to the improvement of procedures and the incorporation of new computing resources", according to the opinion of the Institute. ;agency.
At the Ministry of Agriculture, faster approval is due to a new policy that favors low-toxicity products containing biological, microbiological, biochemical, semiochemical or plant extracts. For these, the average total time between the registration application and the completion of the process varies from three to six months.
The long-term evaluation of the register is one of the main criticisms of peasants who commit themselves to the law 6.299 / 2002. accelerate the release of substances. Known by opponents as "poison PL", one of the measures contemplated by the text is that, if the period of badysis of the chemical exceeds two years, the product is automatically registered.
Currently, the Ministry of Agriculture, Anvisa and Ibama are currently evaluating the application for registration of 1,345 other agrochemicals and active ingredients. Most companies that want to sell these products in Brazil come from abroad, such as the United States, Germany and mainly China.
Of the 40 authorized products, 39 are active ingredients or pesticides already authorized in the country. The application for registration of a previously published product is common, according to four experts consulted by the report. "From the moment the first producing companies file a patent application, the others file an application for registration to use these active ingredients and produce new agricultural products," says Murilo Souza, of the University of Japan. 39, State of Goiás.
For Leonardo Melgarejo, vice president -president of the Southern Region of the Brazilian Association of Agroecology, the approval of the records follows a frantic pace. "We have approved variations on the same article.We do not need all commercial products for the same purposes.We are approaching the proposal of" self-medication ", with two pharmacies in each block , all selling variants of the same drug. "
For Professor Murilo Souza, it is surprising to see the speed with which approvals have been approved. He also criticizes the fact that products initially approved for one crop are distributed to others. "Most of the products are tested only in large plantations, such as soybeans, cotton and sugar cane."
Editor's note: The article was last updated at 18 hours to correct the names of the most toxic active ingredients, namely methomyl and imazethapyr Imazetapir Sapec, Imazetapir N and Imazetapir Proventis are trademarks of the same ingredients approved last week
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