On December 12, João Pedro Stédile, a national leader of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), took part remotely in a European Parliament hearing on the indiscriminate use of pesticides and their impact on human and environmental health. The MST leader called on members of the EU parliament to be strict with the big companies in the sector, which make a fortune exporting poison to South American countries, according to Stedile.
Read more: People’s movements raise concern over EU-Mercosur agreement
European parliamentarians must “have the courage to put the brakes on the greed of European companies, which are the big producers of agrochemicals that are poisoning Latin America. I’m talking about Syngenta, Bayer, Basf and DuPont,” began Stedile, who explained to the parliamentarians how agribusiness is organized in Brazil.
“The first is the predatory latifundium, which is the big capitalist, financed by banks and transnational companies, which goes to the agricultural frontier, in the Amazon, and appropriates the goods of nature in order to accumulate capital. The second model is agribusiness, touted as modern because it uses transgenic seeds and extensive mechanization, but this monoculture model in Brazil, only produces five agricultural commodities, soy, corn, sugar cane, cotton and cattle. It doesn’t produce food and only manages to do so because it makes intensive use of pesticides,” said the MST leader.
“Finally, family farming, which is based on family work, based on polyculture and whose main concern is the production of food, first for themselves and their families, then for the national and local markets. Unfortunately, because of the type of produce they grow, some family farmers are inclined to use pesticides. I’m thinking in particular of those who grow tobacco,” he said.
During the hearing, Stedile reminded the European parliamentarians that “Brazil has become the largest consumer of agrochemicals in the world” and that this makes it a special destination for companies in the sector. However, said Stedile, “pesticides are a poison that kills, that don’t dissolve in nature. It’s enough to know that Fiocruz [Oswaldo Cruz Foundation] found glyphosate residues in the water of 67% of Brazilian homes.”
The MST leader told the European Parliament about the sector’s tax benefits. A report by the Federal Revenue Service showed that agribusiness received almost R$30 billion in tax exemptions from January to August 2024. The companies that participate in the agrochemical market alone earned more than R$21 billion in tax breaks in the first half of this year.
The tax exemptions for agrochemicals are being challenged in the Federal Supreme Court (STF) in a lawsuit filed by the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL), on the grounds that they violate constitutional rights such as the right to health and to a balanced environment, and that they cause losses to the Brazilian federal government’s accounts in the collection of funds, which could be reverted to social policies.
Finally, Stedile asked European parliamentarians “not to approve the Mercosur and European Union agreement, which only meets the needs of German industry, which is to regain the space it has lost in Latin America, and of agribusiness.”
The trade agreement between the continents was signed on December 6 this year and was celebrated by Brazilian agribusiness companies.
This article was translated from an article originally published in Portuguese on Brasil de Fato.
