2023-05-03 13:30:51
On April 13, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock published Act No. 16, which authorizes the use of more than 44 pesticides in national territory. The measure increases by 1,003 the total number of agricultural poisons released during the administration of Carlos Fávaro (PSD/MT), current Minister of the Portfolio and historically linked to the soybean monoculture sector.
By: Jeferson Choma
Among the pesticides released are products known to cause cancer, such as S-Metolachlor and Glyphosate. All of them are produced by a handful of imperialist companies that make millions producing poison.
“It is also worth noting the persistence of Chinese and European manufacturers in supplying pesticides that have been banned in other parts of the world to meet the demands of export agriculture. With this, Brazil remains in the condition of a kind of toxic latrine to which products that have already proven to be highly harmful are sent, either because they cause contamination of water resources, for example, or because they have already been identified as harmful to human health”writes Marcos Pedlowski, a professor at the State University of North Fluminense.
The release of more poison on our table shows that the Lula government is committed to agribusiness to the core. After all, it is the production of basic products agricultural [commodities] which demands the massive use of pesticides. The continued expansion of soybeans and sugar cane, among other monocultures, was accompanied by the explosion in the use of pesticides in the country.
“While the soybean cultivation area increased 53.95% between 2010 and 2019, the use of pesticides in that period increased 71.46%”, writes professor of geography at the University of São Paulo (USP) Larissa Mies Bombardi in her “Geographic atlas of the use of pesticides in Brazil and connections with the European Union”. According to the researcher, the country has an area equivalent to the entire territory of Germany cultivated with soy.
With agriculture, food production decreases
The transformation of capitalist agriculture in Brazil is the result of the new location of the country in the international division of labor. A division marked, above all, by the relative deindustrialization of Brazil and the increase in exports of commodities, such as soybeans, ethanol, iron ore, among other products. The great explosion of these crops occurred in the 2000s, particularly under the Lula government, after the liberation of transgenic soybean cultivation in 2006. In addition to causing immense environmental and human health problems, the expansion of monocultures has reduced food production in Brazil.
According to a study by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) on “Municipal Agricultural Production”, between 1974 and 2020 the area harvested with soybeans grew 623%; the rice area decreased 64%, losing almost three million hectares, and that of beans fell 37%, 1.6 million hectares less than in 1974. In the same period, the Brazilian population more than doubled. In other words, a considerable part of the agricultural use of the Brazilian territory ended up being controlled by large production and marketing companies [tradings]whose main objective is to produce commodities agricultural products for export, and not food for the population. This scenario forces Brazil to import more food from other nations.
It is also necessary to remember that the environmental impact was also brutal. Soybeans advance on native vegetation, especially in the Cerrado, where the flat land favors mechanization. Only the Cerrado lost 50% of its original vegetation cover, from 1970 to 2018. But the Amazon and the Pantanal are also threatened, since agriculture continues to expand over these biomes, despite Lula’s empty promises that he will “fight the deforestation”.
Ministers defend agriculture and attack the MST
The Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) carried out a series of occupations of land and public buildings during “Red April”, the month in which the movement commemorates the Eldorado dos Carajás Massacre, which occurred in Pará in 1996. The movement explained that 100,000 families were mobilized and that the day of occupations is a way of putting pressure on the government to resolve the situation and resume agrarian reform.
The legitimate actions of the MST, however, angered the ministers of Lula’s government. The Minister of Agriculture, Carlos Fávaro, a soy farmer, repudiated the occupations, describing them as unacceptable and an attack against a supposed “sustainable production” of agribusiness. But it was not only the highest representative of agriculture in the government who attacked the movement. PT ministers also attacked the landless. Alexandre Padilha (PT), Minister of Institutional Relations, declared that he “strongly condemns any act that damages productive areas and processes.” Paulo Teixeira, from Agrarian Development, threatened the movement saying that “the eviction of lands invaded in recent days is a condition for the government to continue with the agrarian reform program.”
It is necessary to vehemently repudiate the declarations of government ministers against the MST, who are agile in condemning the legitimate struggle for agrarian reform in the country, while at the same time being meek and cordial with the atrocities of agriculture. In fact, they attack the MST so as not to compromise their alliance and support for the agribusiness landlords. This policy prevents the implementation of an agrarian reform in the country, in addition to condemning biomes such as the Amazon, the Cerrado and the Pantanal to destruction.
Contrary to what João Pedro Stedile, of the MST leadership, says, this government is not “ours”. The MST leadership needs to disassociate itself from the government so that the landless can fight, defeat the farmer and win agrarian reform and the necessary economic support for thousands of peasants.
Article published in www.pstu.org.br, 4/26/2023.-
Translation: Natalia Estrada.
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