Human Rights – Page 4

We Need to Talk About Our Food Systems

Monica Piccinini

8 June 2023

Our global food systems are highly complex and serve many constituent parts. It’s responsible for making available fresh produce throughout the year in countries and regions that historically have been very limited in their food produce. Viewed in a positive light, the systems serve the needs of many.

However, as the global food systems have evolved over time, it has increasingly been focused on monetary gain for corporate stakeholders and less about serving the needs of the global populous.

The increasing focus on economic gain from the global food systems can be evidenced as a cause of wide scale sickness, hunger, poverty, sickness, homelessness, poisoning of our land, water, air, plants, animals, our bodies and minds.

The food industry is considered as a major drive of climate change, responsible for one third of world GHG emissions (IPCC 2019), land-use change and biodiversity loss (40% of earth’s surface), major user of freshwater resources (70% of global freshwater) and a major polluter of terrestrial aquatic systems through the use of chemicals.

During the Extinction or Regeneration Conference 2023 in London, Philip Lymbery, global CEO of Compassion in World Farming, highlighted the fact that we rely more and more on a small number of countries for the production of major crops on which we depend on. When certain world events occur, such as conflicts and the Covid-19 pandemic, and global supply chains are disrupted, the entire food system is impacted.

*Philip Lymbery at the Extinction or Regeneration Conference 2023, London*

The countries we rely on, mainly in the global south, are forced to invest in “cash crops” for exports, not producing enough to feed their own population. They produce raw materials that we then process and sell it back to them in the form of finished food products, mainly as a result of their huge debt, explained Lymbery.

Food security is another issue, as we have witnessed in recent years a record high in food prices, global hunger and social inequities that result from the industrial farming systems, not just from conflicts and climate change. We are producing enough food to feed the entire world, but what we’ve seen is a mismatch between supply and demand, a financialisation of agriculture systems and markets, as well as an increase in power concentration.

Lymbery said, “These companies are taking our food systems hostage for their thirst for profits.”

“Food systems are often shaped by politics, rather than policies”, he added.

Our food systems are also impacting our health and making us sick. According to Marco Springmann, senior researcher in environment and health at the Environmental Change Institute at University of Oxford, the cost of treating diet-related diseases is projected to exceed USD 1 trillion by 2030, also putting a strain on health systems around the world.

“Food that brings you sickness and disease is not food, it’s poison”, said Dr. Vandana Shiva, Indian environmentalist, physicist and author, during one of her speeches at the Extinction or Regeneration Conference 2023 in London.

*Extinction or Regeneration Conference 2023, London – Photo Credit: Robbie Blake, IPES-Food*

Power Concentration

We are experiencing growing concentration in our food systems, as the number of corporations controlling everything, from inputs up through retail are getting smaller.

According to Jennifer Clapp, Canada research chair & professor, School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability at University of Waterloo, and IPES Food “Who’s Tipping the Scales” report, only top six agrochemical companies control 78% of the global market, the top six animal pharmaceuticals control 72%, the top six farm machinery control 50%, the top six seeds companies control 58% and the top five global grain traders control between 70-90%.

Jennifer Clapp at the Extinction or Regeneration Conference 2023, London – Photo Credit: Robbie Blake, IPES-Food

Four major grain traders control approximately 80% of the trade in cereals worldwide, the ABCD firms, ADM (Archer-Daniels-Midland), Bunge, Cargill and Dreyfus; and four major food processing and packaging companies dominate the global market, Nestle, PepsiCo, Anheuser-Bush InBev and JBS.

Since 2015, we’ve seen mega mergers in the seeds and agrochemicals industry, making these corporations even more dominant and powerful. Some of the mergers include Bayer and Monsanto, ChemChina and Syngenta, Dow and Dupont merged to form Corteva, Agrium and Potash Corp merged to form Nutrien.

Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights and co-chair of IPES-Food, mentioned that giant dominant food corporations acquired the position in decision making to veto any transformative change.

According to him, “it’s not because of corruption of politicians or the finance lobbyists working on their behalf, it’s because they are the champions of economic gain of large scale production that global commodities markets demand.”

“This allows these corporations to say to politicians, “trust us”, we know how to produce food for mass consumption, … if you impose too strong regulations on us, you’ll be faced with higher prices that your voters will have to face. This is what allows them to have a privileged access to politicians”, he added.

He explained that these companies manage to get protection from legislators for intellectual property rights for the new “breeds” that they develop, as well as the new technologies that they promote. Additionally, they can very easily challenge environmental regulations. The State ends up in the hands of these economic actors and ends up working for them.

*Olivier De Schutter at the Extinction or Regeneration Conference 2023, London – Photo Credit: Robbie Blake, IPES-Food*

These corporations also control the labour conditions of the food system worker, the products that end up in the supermarkets shelves, and have the power to shape government policies. Small-scale producers don’t stand a chance when faced with such powerful competition.

In order to democratise our food systems, we need to increase transparency and accountability.

It’s necessary to set up a worldwide robust anti-trust and competition legislation and food policy, as well as creating a lobby register, which is already in place in some countries, in order to limit the concentration of power of the big agrifood corporations

We should be listening to farmers and working with them to identify solutions that will not only be beneficial to them, but also to our health and the environment, instead of filling the pockets of greedy corporations.

“We also need more public support for alternative food systems, in particular, research and development money going towards agroecology and organic agriculture”, mentioned Clapp.

She added that it’s now necessary for the State to step back in like they did in the past, when they played a prominent role during the last transition to industrial agriculture with R&D and hybridisation in fertilisers and other sectors.

There’s a need control those actors that have the power to shape our policy spaces, including measures that prevent conflicts of interests, where corporate officials end up as regulators and go back to work in the corporate sector.

Lastly, there’s the need to create an autonomous space for civil society to determine and control the rules and governance they’d like to see happen.

It’s a Profitable & Greedy Business

*Photo: ID 37710625 © Syda Productions | Dreamstime.com*

According to Planet Tracker, a non-profit think tank, nearly USD 9 trillion of private finance is currently supporting the global food system.

“Financial regulations have become weakened to the extent that they’ve allowed big financial institutions like banks and investment houses to create new financial products for investors to speculate on food commodities”, explained Jennifer Clapp during the Extinction or Regeneration Conference 2023.

The price of commodities can swing much higher or lower than supply and demand would normally indicate and this creates price volatility, consequently generating profit for these institutions.

“There’s another aspect of financial concentration, where asset management firms own huge portions of the global food systems. The ABCD firms, ADM, Bunge, Cargill and Dreyfus, make huge windfall profits when food commodity prices swing. We saw this happening in 2008, and once again, in 2022, when Russian invaded Ukraine”, added Clapp.

Asset management firms, Blackrock, Vanguard, State Street and Capital Group, manage people’s pensions, trillions of assets worth over USD 20 trillion in the global economy. They are buying shares in almost all the companies across the entire agrifood supply chain, which means they have a shared interest in those companies being profitable, therefore creating an incentive for collusion.

Clapp mentioned that economists are concerned about this issue, which is called common ownership, leading to a reduction in competition, as well as leading to higher prices and encouragement of mergers and acquisitions, creating even bigger companies.

The danger of this situation is the fact that it allows them to hold more power to shift food systems in a certain direction, enabling them to shape markets in a way that it can affect prices that consumers pay. Prices are kept low for the agriculture and livestock producers and high for consumers. They also have the power to determine what technologies are going to dominate the market.

Clapp proposed a few solutions to some of these problems, including stronger rules in the financial markets, rules to curb speculation, better reporting, better limits on financial actors in these markets, as well as rules limiting asset managers owning the entire scope of the food systems.

Health Hazards, New Pandemics & Antimicrobial Resistance

*Photo: 117616099 / Antimicrobial Resistance © Designer491 | Dreamstime.com*

Industrial animal production may be a driver of future pandemics. The confinement of high number of animal in small spaces, leave them much more susceptible to viruses and infections, with the potential to evolve into more infectious types, explained Melissa Leach, social anthropologist and geographer, director of the Institute of Development Studies, IDS, during the Extinction or Rebellion Conference 2023.

All recent infectious diseases outbreaks and pandemics are zoonotic, as they originate in animals. Wildlife domestic and farmed animals and humans all interact in intense interfaces where spillover can occur.

The World Health Organisation, WHO, describes antimicrobial resistance, AMR, as the overlooked pandemic. It contributes to treatment failures, increasing human vulnerability to a wide range of infections.

Some of the latest figures suggest that AMR will cause 10 million deaths by the year 2050, more than from cancer, diabetes and pneumococcal diseases combined.

“Key causes of AMR are the overuse of antibiotics in livestock to promote growth and routinely prevent diseases, especially in intensified livestock farming”, mentioned Leach.

*Melissa Leach at the Extinction or Regeneration Conference 2023, London – Photo Credit: Robbie Blake, IPES-Food*

A study published by The Lancet, Global Burden of Bacterial Antimicrobial Resistance in 2019, estimates that there were 1.27 million deaths globally due to AMR in 2019, and 4.96 million deaths associated with AMR, compared with 6.9 million deaths globally from Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.

According to Cóilín Nunan, scientific adviser to the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, certain types of antibiotics used in animal farming have led to the rise and spread of livestock associated strains of MRSA and clostidrium difficile.

There’s also the resistance to colistin, used as a last resort antibiotic in human medicine for treating life-threatening infections on patients who don’t respond well to other antibiotics, added Nunan.

Scientists from Oxford University released a study showing Escherichia coli bacteria that acquired resistance to colistin in animal farming. According to Nunan, this is an issue of concern and may be more dangerous than AMR, as it may be more able to cause infections in humans.

In Europe, over 60% of antibiotics are used in farmed animals, rather than in medicine. Globally, the figure rises to nearly 70%.

*Photo: ID 118875273 © Petr Goskov | Dreamstime.com*

The health impact caused by our food systems is putting a real strain on health systems around the world. There’s been a rise in conditions, including type 2 diabetes, obesity, depression, cardiovascular diseases and certain types of gastro-intestinal cancer, amongst others, all related to our diets.

We can no longer deny the urgent need to embrace more sustainable food systems solutions, support and listen to our farmers, respect and protect Indigenous peoples, our land and the environment, which we are highly dependent on.

The concentration of power within our food systems should be limited and a new model replaced instead, to ensure there’s fairness and equality, access to healthy and nutritious food for everyone, everywhere, and that our health and the health of our planet is protected and respected.

Brazilian Scientists’ Hopes and Expectations for the Future

Monica Piccinini

10 May 2023

The election of Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, ‘Lula’, in October 2022, brought a sense of relief and hope to the Brazilian scientific community.

Just over three months into his administration, Lula’s challenging task to fulfill all the promises he made before he came into power became apparent. The populous of Brazil, along with the rest of the world, is watching what happens next.

In the past four years, the country has faced considerable challenges, including budget cuts in science and technology, the spread of misinformation leading to the denial of climate change, anti-vaccine movements, and the use of ineffective drugs against COVID-19, amongst many others.

“Brazil is once again reconciling economic growth with social inclusion. Rebuilding what was destroyed and moving forward. Brazil is once again a country without hunger. While preparing the ground for infrastructure work that was abandoned or ignored by the previous government, Brazil is again taking care of health, education, science and technology, culture, housing and public safety”, declared Lula during the meeting at Brasilia’s Planalto Palace in April.

A group of five renowned scientists share their views and expectations about scientific policies in Brazil, published at Nature Human Behaviour this month.

Mercedes Maria da Cunha Bustamante, biologist, Pedro Gabriel Godinho Delgado, doctor and psychiatrist, Lucas Ferrante, ecologist and researcher, Juliana Hipólito, biologist, and Mariana M. Vale, ecologist, highlight key areas of concern to be addressed by the current government.

Public Health & the Environment

*Illustration 144851985 / Brazil Public Health © Gunay Aliyevs | Dreamstime.com*

According to Lucas Ferrante, the past government was notable for the prominent role of scientific denialism. Ministers were chosen for their ideology, rather than their technical ability, and scientific advice was simply ignored.

The second catastrophic COVID-19 wave in the Amazon, making Brazil one of the global epicentres for the disease, could have been prevented if the past government had listened to scientific advice.

The absence of a technically oriented government under Jair Bolsonaro’s administration also increased deforestation in the Amazon rainforest at an alarming rate, threatening the environment, traditional and indigenous communities, as well as climate change goals, wrote Ferrante.

He also mentioned that despite the change in government, there’s the need to remember past events.

During Lula’s two previous terms as president (2003-2010), he showed worrying denialistic tendencies, ignoring scientific reports and scientists’ advice. An example of this was the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam disaster, which affected the Xingu River and traditional communities, causing a catastrophic socio environmental impact.

Essential plans should include blocking major infrastructure projects in the Amazon rainforest, such as the reconstruction of BR-319 highway linking Manaus to Porto Velho, which will affect traditional and indigenous communities, biodiversity and increase deforestation in the region, as well as agriculture production chains that could give rise to a new pandemic.

Brazil’s biodiversity is extremely rich, but lacks surveys of viruses circulating in its fauna, therefore a well established surveillance programme is required in order to reduce the risk of new pandemics emerging through viral spillover, declared Mariana M. Vale.

Nísia Trindade, Brazil’s health minister, mentioned during a lower house hearing last month that the country should be gearing up for future pandemics by investing in science, technology and Brazil’s national healthcare system, SUS (Sistema Único de Saúde).

*Illustration 98533932 / Brazil Environment © Cienpies Design / Illustrations | Dreamstime.com*

Juliana Hipólito highlighted another significant issue of concern, society’s lost value and interest of science in their daily lives. As a consequence, this lead to an increase in deforestation rates, climate change denialism, anti-vaccine movements and the use of ineffective unproven drugs against COVID-19.

The past government’s dismantling of environmental policies increasing deforestation and the approval of a large number of toxic pesticides is also something the science community expects to be reversed, she added.

According to experts, Brazil’s use of pesticides increased exponentially in the last few years, growing 300,000 tonnes since 2010. Approximately 80% of the pesticides authorised for commercialization in Brazil are prohibited in at least three countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) of the European community.

In the field of mental health, Pedro Gabriel Godinho Delgado expects to see development of long-term projects to better understand the interfaces between mental health suffering and the profound social inequality and precariousness of life in Brazil.

According to him, urban violence, racism, stigma, gender prejudice, loss of childhood and adolescence and their relationship with human suffering, should no longer be marginal and must be included amongst the priorities of research. The long-term consequences of COVID-19 on mental and physical health also deserve special attention from researchers.

Investments, Social Justice & Equity

*Illustration 34989348 © David Castillo Dominici | Dreamstime.com*

Divestment is an issue of concern, as Brazil’s previous government cut considerably investment in scientific and educational organisations. There was a huge drop in investments in INPE (National Institute for Space Research), INPA (National Institute of Amazonian Research), CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development), and federal universities.

According to Hipólito, budget cuts skyrocket during the past government. Research funding and the budget of leading science and technology funding agencies were reduced by 60% from 2014 to 2022.

Socio-economic conditions have been sacrificed as a result of the cuts, therefore affecting the country’s capacity for the innovation and economic diversification.

Mercedes Maria da Cunha Bustamante mentioned the urgent need to support vulnerable groups (women, the youth and the poorest – most of them people of colour) in Brazil with the demand for public policies that would put the country back on track towards social justice and equity.

Reducing poverty, combating climate change and biodiversity decline are intrinsically connected.

The current administration also needs to focus on improving education from elementary level, adds Bustamante. A similar scenario is seen at public universities, which were affected by budget reductions under the last government. Brazilian public universities account for most of the national scientific production and are major drivers of social inclusion.

It’s essential to increase diversity, she added, as it’s vital for addressing societal demands through the generation of new knowledge, making Brazil attractive again for young scientists and allowing science to have a more prominent role in policy making.

Vale pointed out that white male individuals still dominate Brazilian academia and highlighted the need to strengthen and improve existing policies on diversity, equity and inclusion in science, especially regarding black and indigenous people.

Brazil has seen a massive exodus of scientists, leaving their jobs to work abroad, where their skills are most valued. The current government should set up a development and retention plan, encouraging and supporting scientists across the country.

Although the scientific community remains confident and positive, it’s crucial that they continue to defend science, and that the general population are not deceived into thinking that a change in governance alone is sufficient to bring about the needed improvements in public health and the environment, mentioned Ferrante.

The voice of scientists who dedicate their entire lives to protecting and bettering our daily lives couldn’t be louder and should be heard. Perhaps it’s time for Brazilian society, politicians, institutions and corporations to fully support this community that has been undervalued for so long.

Who Controls What We Grow and Eat?

Monica Piccinini

9 May 2023

Similar to our current political & economic systems, the food system is no longer serving us; mainly driven by power, profit and greed, resulting in global food insecurity and impacting directly on our health and the environment.

We’ve seen a sharp increase in food insecurity worldwide, driven not only by climate change and multiple conflicts, but also by an unbalanced food system fuelled by corporate power.

As the world population is projected to reach 9.8 billion in the next 27 years, there’s an urgent need to address issues related to our food system, or we may be facing a worldwide famine sooner than expected. We’ve already seen signs of this in many parts of the world.

“The right to food is the right to have regular, permanent and unrestricted access—either directly or by means of financial purchases— to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and which ensure a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear”, according to the United Nations.

Corporate Power

*Photo 77536321 © Daniil Peshkov | Dreamstime.com*

Giant agribusiness corporations hold the power and control over our food systems, with the ability to influence governments and decision-makers, through lobbying, with the direct intention of shaping policies in many ways.

Their objectives and tactics are questionable, with the tendency to favour their own interests, focusing on profits and maximising shareholder value, rather than addressing hunger and malnutrition.

According to ‘Who’s Tipping the Scales’, a report published by IPES Food, the international panel of experts on sustainable food systems:

“A bold, structural vision to counter the corporate takeover of food-related global governance – one that support central roles for people, governments, and democratic, public-interest-based decision-making, is urgently needed.”

It’s clear that the voices of the most vulnerable communities across the world, and mostly affected by hunger and environmental impact caused by this industry, must be heard.

These giant and dominant agribusiness corporations influence the global organisations we most trust, which should be there to defend our interests. To the surprise of many, agribusiness associations were sitting directly at the UN governance table at the 2021 UNFSS, UN Food Systems Summit.

One must also question the kind of relationship between the private sector and international governance bodies and institutions about potential conflicts of interest.

According to the IPES Food report, in 2020, a private philanthropic foundation, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was the second largest donor to the CGIAR, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.

Another partnership that raises some eyebrows is the FAO’s, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, partnership with CropLife International, CLI, an agrochemical lobby organisation, whose members include Syngenta, BASF, FMC and Bayer (acquired Monsanto in 2018).

PAN North America, Pesticide Action Network, mentioned that instead of putting the profit of CropLife International members before farmers and consumers worldwide, the FAO must invest in solutions, including agroecology and take stronger action on ending the usage of highly hazardous pesticides, HHPs.

We’ve also seen increase in consolidation, a large number of mergers and acquisitions, allowing these corporations to dominate the agribusiness sector. This allows these giants to have a profound influence on governance and the structure of our food system, resulting in anti-competitive market practices.

Our Health & the Environment

*Illustration 273587833 / Food Food © Altitudevs | Dreamstime.com*

These corporations have significant funding at their disposal to influence policies and regulations, such as pesticides, biosafety, patents, intellectual property, as well as trade and investment agreements.

Bayer AG spent over USD 9 million lobbying the US government in 2019, after it acquired Monsanto. At the time, they were reviewing the re-registration of one of the company’s main products, glyphosate (Roundup), which is considered a toxic herbicide. In the US, Bayer has been contesting billion of dollars in settlement claims to end lawsuits over accusations that glyphosate causes cancer.

They are also responsible for shaping science by sponsoring academic research favouring their corporate interests, influencing governance and policies. This was seen in the agrochemical and processed food sectors.

As proof of this, below is an internal email between Monsanto executives obtained by lawyers representing plaintiffs in the Roundup® litigation, where they suggest ‘beating the s**t out of’ a mother’s group expressing concern over the effects of GMOs and Roundup® on their children.

Monsanto also tried to influence science by sponsoring various ghostwriting academic articles questioning scientific studies that raised concern over its product’s safety, glyphosate.

Another very concerning issue related to the health of our children is the fact that this industry continuously lobbies against mandatory public health measures, including taxes on ultra-processed foods, UPF, sugary drinks and front of package labeling, as well as restrictions on marketing of unhealthy foods to our children. This has a gigantic impact on their health and also creates pressure on our health systems.

A reported example of this was when a children’s cereal manufacturer attempted to sue Mexico after the country tried to amend a food packaging regulation called NOM-5, in order to protect their children from the marketing of unhealthy foods. The regulation established that certain unhealthy products would be prohibited from putting children’s animations and characters on their packages.

The invention of novel foods also raises some red flags. On March, The Defender, a publication defending children’s health, published a piece on Bill Gates’ latest invention, an edible food coating called Apeel, which is an odourless, colourless and tasteless coating for vegetables and fruit, which potentially extends the life span of these products, keeping it fresher for up to two times longer.

Apeel has already received the green light from US regulators, but some questions still remain unanswered surrounding the safety of the product, as the company is relying mainly on existing scientific studies, as no new science has been required to evaluate and test the product.

We seem to be completely exposed and reliant on these corporations to carry out their own safety studies, without the scrutiny of independent regulators and scientific studies.

According to the 2011 UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, companies are expected to develop their own internal procedures to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for how they address their impacts on human and environmental rights in global supply chains.

It’s clear that the way we grow our food has a massive impact not only on our physical and mental health, but also on our environment, affecting fauna and flora, the health of our soil, water and air.

Recently, we have seen a sharp increase of fungal disease in crops, affecting 168 crops listed as important in human nutrition, according to FAO of the United Nations. Despite spraying fungicides, farmers are losing between 10-23% of their crops to fungal disease every year, including rice, corn, soybeans and potatoes.

According to a study published at Nature journal, this issue is mainly because of the adaptability of fungi to meet modern agricultural practices. Monocultures entail vast areas of genetically uniform crops, an ideal ground for fast-evolving organisms, such as fungi. Another problem is the increasingly widespread use of antifungal treatments, leading to fungicide resistance.

The use of pesticides and toxic chemicals are increasing exponentially across the world, causing havoc to our health, the soil, polluting water sources, the air, animals and plants.

Industrial agriculture, including cattle farming, soybean, palm oil, sugar cane, corn, wheat, GMOs, monoculture production, is responsible for the deforestation of rainforests, the Cerrado, and many other parts of the world, causing destruction and degradation.

In Brazil, 2.8% of landowners own over 56% of all arable land, and 50% of smallholder farms have access to only 2.5% of the land. Overall, the land is in the hands of a small number of industrial farms.

We must rethink the way we grow our food and we all have the right to access nutritious and healthy food and decide what we eat.

Digital Farming

*Photo 225876642 © Andrey Popov | Dreamstime.com*

The agribusiness sector spends vast amounts on research and development, making it extremely hard for smaller companies to compete with them, capitalising on patent protection and intellectual property rights.

Why? Because they can!

Patent protection and intellectual property is another issue that should be catching everyone’s attention.

Giant tech companies, such as Amazon and Microsoft, among others, entered the food sector focusing on power, control and profit. Small farmers and local food systems are struggling, as they can’t afford to use this high tech data gathering technology. They are also located in remote areas where these types of services can’t reach.

We can see an increasing movement of powerful integration and control between the companies that are supplying products to farmers, such as tractors, drones, pesticides, etc., and the tech giants. They feed and control farmers with information, and at the same time have direct access to consumers.

The aim is to integrate millions of farmers into a wide centrally controlled network by encouraging and forcing them to buy their products. This digital infrastructure is run by platforms developed by tech companies that run cloud services.

Fujitsu farm workers, located just outside Hanoi, carry smartphones supplied by the company, which monitors their every single movements, productivity, the amount of hours they work, etc., all stored on the company’s cloud. This is extremely worrying, as this practice could easily lead to labour exploitation.

Similar to Fujitsu, other companies investing heavily on this type of digital farming platforms include Microsoft’s Azure FarmBeats, Bayer’s Fieldview, BASF’s Xarvio, Syngenta’s CropWise, Yara’s Yaralrix and Olam’s OFIS, Olam Farmer Information System.

It’s essential to point out the extent of data gathering these platforms are capable of, including real time data and analysis on the farmers soil condition and water, crops growth, pests and diseases monitoring, weather, humidity, climate change, tractor monitoring, etc.

Some of these corporations are also trying to eliminate the “middlemen” by selling directly to consumers, which may be attractive proposition to many, if the idea is mainly to help farmers and small vendors directly, but somehow they may use digital platforms to increase their pricing power over farmers.

An important question we must ask these companies, regulators and our governments: who controls all this data, what do they do with it and who gives the advice?

The influence a few powerful corporations have in food governance must be scrutinised. Governments should be leading in the field of food security and not leaving it in the hands of those that put profit over longevity of life. It may seem a drastic change to the world as we know it, but it may be the only way to bring back a balance in the global food system and secure our quality of life and ultimately our survival.

Using Science to Block a Road to Ruin – The Amazon BR-319

Monica Piccinini

23 Feb 2023

According to two prominent scientists, Lucas Ferrante and Philip Fearnside, and the result of their studies, the ambitious reconstruction of the BR-319 highway, linking the capital Manaus in central Amazonia to the southern edge of the forest, Porto Velho, might be a catalyst to rampant deforestation with irreversible and catastrophic consequences to the rainforest.

BR-319, a stretch of 830 km, connecting the ‘arc of deforestation’, was inaugurated in March 1976, during the military dictatorship, under the government of General Ernesto Geisel, and abandoned in 1988. In 2015, Dilma Roussef’s government proposed reopening BR-319.

“The BR-319 highway cuts through one of the most preserved blocks of the forest, where it contains an enormous stock of carbon. This project is a threat to 63 indigenous lands and 18,000 indigenous people, not to mention the environment and biodiversity”, mentioned Lucas Ferrante, environmental scientist.

*Brazilian Amazonia and Highway BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho). Source: map produced by scientist Lucas Ferrante in the ArcGIS software, deforestation data from INPE 2021*.

Despite the warnings from scientists about the negative consequences this project may bring to the region, it’s considered a priority for Brazil’s new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. During an interview with a radio station in Manaus last September, he mentioned:

“We do not want to transform the state of Amazonas into a sanctuary for humanity. Millions of people live in the state of Amazonas. We have to give these people the right to civility, the right to live well, the right to come and go. It is entirely possible for you to work the climate issue correctly, work the environmental issue correctly and provide the necessary security so that you can build good roads that can connect the state of Amazonas with the rest of the country.”

However, according to Lucas Ferrante, the newly elected president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, only replicates a political boast that it is possible to establish territorial governance.

“We need to make some things clear, this is just political rhetoric, a bravado that does not consolidate. According to a study we published at Land Use Policy, the BR-319 highway area had a deforestation rate of up to 2.6 times higher than the deforestation rates observed in other parts of the Amazon, i.e., the state of Amazonas is no longer a isolated sanctuary, yet another area increasingly occupied by criminal organisations that encourage land grabbing and deforestation”, argues Ferrante.

“In addition, people have always had the right to come and go by other modes of transport, but they do not have the right to collapse one of the most biodiverse blocks of the rainforest, which is home to a wide variety of native peoples and which consequently, if deforested, could collapse the global climate,” added Ferrante.

Scientific Studies Raising Red Flags

Lucas Ferrante, environmental scientist, and Philip Fearnside, a biologist at Brazil’s National Institute of Amazonian Research (INPA) and Nobel Peace Prize winner for climate research (2007), both published various scientific studies highlighting the negative effects of this project on the Amazon rainforest.

The highway is a free path to illegal side roads in areas of large concentration of indigenous land, legal reserves and conservation units, giving illegal miners, loggers, squatters and land grabbers access to untouched forest and public lands.

*Illegal timber seized by IBAMA agents along the BR-319 highway. Photo by scientist Lucas Ferrante.*

As a consequence, these invaders are bringing a wave of destruction, instability, pollution, violence, disease, decay and death to the traditional communities, indigenous people and the environment around them.

In October 2021, a Washington Post journalist, Terrence McCoy and scientist Lucas Ferrante, set themselves on a journey across the length of BR-319 highway, showing the path of destruction and devastation caused by illegal deforestation, land grabbing, mining, fires, violence and even killings. The burnt body of a dead man was found along the way after he had reported land-grabbing activities in the area to the federal police.

*Photo of a burnt dead body around BR-319. Photo by scientist Lucas Ferrante.*

In 2017, buildings belonging to IBAMA (Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) and the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) in Humaitá were set on fire by miners and remain inoperative.

It is estimated that BR-319 and planned side roads will generate an increase of the deforested area by more than 1,200% between the highway and Brazil’s border with Peru. This projection relates to central Amazon alone, if extended to Peru, the numbers would increase significantly.

According to a scientific article published in the journal Land Use Policy by both Ferrante and Fearnside, despite environmental legislation requiring an environmental impact assessment (EIA) for one of the stretches of the highway, the project was given the green light from a judge, who authorised it without an EIA.

Additionally, the reconstruction of the highway lacks an economic viability study, EVTEA, required by law 5917/1973, as well as consultation with indigenous people required by International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 169 and by Brazilian law 10,088/2019.

The main transport route used in the region has always been via the Madeira River, making it a cheaper, cleaner and safer way to transport goods.

Fernanda Meirelles, executive secretary of the BR-319 Observatory, commented during our interview earlier this month:

“The LP, Preliminary License, was issued without consultations with the indigenous people and traditional communities, an important stage of the process that was not respected. We do not know whether consultations will be carried out in this current government or whether an intervention by the MPF (Federal Public Ministry) will be necessary to fullfil the obligation of consultation”,

“Public hearings were held during the pandemic, but in an inadequate way. There was no logistical support to guarantee the presence of traditional communities and indigenous people, in additional to having been held at a very inhospitable moment for any time of contrary opinion or manifestation. We even witnessed attacks suffered by researcher and scientist, Phillip Fearnside, during these public hearings”, added Meirelles.

According to data released by SEEG, the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Estimation System, between 2018 and 2019, the municipalities surrounding BR-319 highway had a staggering 16% increase in greenhouse gas emissions from land use and agriculture.

The reopening of this highway would also give agribusiness access to more land for expansion, including cattle farming, soy and palm oil plantations, monoculture expansion for large-scale biofuel production, as well as fossil fuel companies, hydroelectric dams, mining, etc.

As various studies indicate, including the ones published at Land Use Policy, and Environmental Conservation, these practices are already happening with the maintenance works of the road and would increase exponentially with the reconstruction of the BR-319 highway.

*Deforested and burned area along the middle stretch of BR-319 highway. Photo by scientist Lucas Ferrante*.

There’s still no information about the costs and sources of funds for this gigantic project. The same applies to a very essential monitoring system project, which was never presented.

Profiteers – All Eyes Focused on the Amazon

There are countless politicians, corporations, governmental agencies and organisations with either a hidden or visible interest in the reconstruction of BR-319 and hoping it succeeds. This project is a gateway to a heaven of natural resources waiting to be exploited and the highway will make their journey a much smoother process.

According to Fearnside, Rosneft, a giant Russian oil and gas company, with drilling rights to 16 extraction blocks located west of BR-319, approximately 35 km from the Purus River, by the Solimões Basin, would be one of the beneficiaries of the project.

Another very concerning sector is biofuel production in the Amazon. Biofuels are produced based on agricultural products, including sugar cane, corn, castor bean, palm oil and raw materials of animal origin.

According to a Global Witness report, BBF Group (Brasil Biofuels) and Agrapalma, two Brazilian palm oil (azeite de dendê) giants, are accused of various violations in the Amazon, including conflict with local communities, violent campaigns to silence indigenous communities and fraudulent land grabs.

BBF is the largest producer of palm oil in Latin America, also active in thermoelectric generation and biodiesel in the Amazon region (Acre, Amazonas, Rondônia, Roraima and Pará). The company announced that it‘s going to invest R$5 billion over the next three years in the production of biofuels, including corn ethanol. The BR-319 project would certainly facilitate their business developments in the region.

Studies coordinated by Ferrante point out that the expansion of plantations for the production of biofuels in the Amazon tends to encourage deforestation and collapse the forest, in addition to providing zoonotic jumps of viruses stored in the forest, generating a new global pandemic.

Based on scientific research, Ferrante managed to overthrow a presidential decree that released sugarcane to the Amazon, but according to him, corn and palm oil are still crops that have an enormous potential for environmental damage and to generate deforestation, demanding economic ecological zoning mainly for the BR-319 highway area.

Politicians, infrastructure companies, national and international corporations, all show great interest in this ambitious project, as the highway would be key to their business expansion.

The voice of a public figure and politician, the governor of Amazonas, Wilson Lima, would have been a great opportunity for us to understand more about this challenging project. Unfortunately, Lima did not respond to a request for an interview.

The only NGO in the region that agreed to be interviewed about the BR-319 project was IDESAM/BR-319 Observatory.

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation failed to respond a request for an interview. Funbio responded, but failed to answer questions about the project.

Fundo JBS pela Amazônia mentioned that they we were unable to contribute to this matter, because the reconstruction of BR-319 had nothing to do with the fund and that this is not something that directly impacts their projects.

WWF Brasil did not have a spokesperson available to answer questions related to the project and asked that any questions be directed to BR-319 Observatory.

National and international media, politicians, corporations, governmental agencies, as well as some NGOs, seem to be reluctant to talk about the reconstruction of the BR-319 highway.

All studies so far show that this project lacks environmental governance and would be detrimental to the local communities as well as the rainforest. It also lacks an economic viability study, a monitoring system plan and consultation with the traditional and indigenous communities.

This appears to be a politically motivated plan with every president elected repeatedly making the same promise, selling the idea that the reconstruction of BR-319 highway would bring prosperity to the region, without considering that it may also bring pollution, illegal activities, violence, diseases, rampant and irreversible deforestation and destruction to the rainforest with catastrophic consequences to Brazil and the rest of the world.

If completed, this project may put in jeopardy the future and survival of the Amazon rainforest, all in the name of what they call “progress”!

Article available in Portuguese at A Escola Legal.

World’s Addiction to Brazilian Meat Feeding Deforestation and Destruction

Monica Piccinini

28 Oct 2022

How much are we willing to pay for our meat obsession?

As the world population continues to grow and predicted to reach nearly 10 billion by 2050, meat consumption is on the increase. According to a study published by Science, between 90 to 99 percent of all deforestation in the tropics is driven directly or indirectly by agribusiness.

Livestock is the leading driver of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest and a key factor of not just CO2 emissions, roughly 14.5% of all human-induced global GHG emissions, but also of methane.

According to IPAM, the Amazon Environmental Research Institute, cattle pastures occupy 75% of the deforested area on public lands in the Amazon. Deforestation of the Amazon and Cerrado are the main drivers of Brazil’s CO2 emissions.

“Squatting is a risk factor for the planet’s climate balance, and it also poses two problems for the livestock sector: illegality and more greenhouse gas emissions,” says IPAM senior researcher Paulo Moutinho.

“A truly low carbon economy in Brazil needs to undergo a comprehensive analysis of the impact of production chains on the worsening of the greenhouse effect. Leaving these emissions aside makes no sense when we have an ongoing climate emergency,” he warns.

A recent study conducted by WWF found that out of the 486 endangered species in the Amazon and Cerrado regions, 484 of them have lost part of their habitat as a result of deforestation.

It’s fair to say we shouldn’t point the finger at one single direction, when you realise that there’s a significant number of worldwide investors and supporters financing deforestation in the region. Complicity must be shared equally.

With that in mind, some fundamental and essential questions must be answered; as to who is to blame and what effective actions can we expect to be taken from world leaders, financiers, governments, corporations and the general public?

Meat Giants

*Photo: 196817068 © Alf Ribeiro | Dreamstime.com*

JBS, Marfrig and Minerva are Brazil’s largest meat processors and exporters, supplying food chains and supermarkets in Brazil and across the world.

JBS is the world’s largest meat (beef, pork, lamb and poultry) processing company in the world with the largest climate footprint. It has US$ 76 bi in revenues, employs over 250,000 people globally, and has over 70 brands and customers in 190 countries, including Swift, Pilgrim’s Pride, Moy Park, Certified Angus Beef, Gold Kist, Oak Crown, Moyer, Clear River Farms, Geo, and many more.

In 2021, the majority of the company’s revenues were made in the United States (51%), Asia (15%), Brazil (12%) and Europe (7%), and the majority of its exports in 2020 went to China (27.2%).

The company is associated with suppliers linked to deforestation, pollution, slave labour, fires, bribery, land grabbing and invasion of Indigenous peoples’ land, protected areas and reserves.

According to a Mighty Earth report, The Boys from Brazil, JBS, Marfrig and Minerva maintain that they can’t trace its cattle through its supply chain and eliminate cattle linked to deforestation areas.

JBS has been accused of “cattle laundering”, the shuffling of cattle from ranch to ranch in order to conceal their illegal origins. The process is tricky and difficult to track. The cattle are bred where deforestation occurs, moved to other properties where it is nurtured through adolescence and then taken to “fattening” farms. The cattle are then transferred to processing plants where they are slaughtered and butchered ready to be shipped/exported.

“In their emission disclosure and their net-zero target for 2040 JBS fails to take responsibility for an estimated 97% of its emissions footprint, by neglecting emissions from farms and feedlots that are not owned by JBS and emissions related to deforestation. The company plans to continue growth in a GHG emission-intensive industry; we did not find evidence of any planned deep decarbonisation measures”, was reported in the Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor 2022 assessment (page 84).

“Rather than making noises about being transparent about their supply chains and emissions, why don’t JBS disclose their most recent data? It’s time for JBS to come clean about their global slaughter figures, so we can determine with pinpoint accuracy the scale of their climate footprint”, said Gemma Hoskins, UK director of Mighty Earth.

Fires in the Amazon and Cerrado regions are not naturally occurring events; they usually start intentionally, to clear the land for pasture, illegal logging and land grabbers or to grow animal feed. In September, Brazil’s National Space Research Agency, INPE, reported 41,282 fires in the Amazon rainforest, the highest number since 2010.

The Supporter’s Black List

There are a substantial large number of investors and supporters involved in financing, directly or indirectly, the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest and the Cerrado regions.

An investigation released in June by Global Witness revealed that one of JBS’s supplier, the Seronni dynasty, was allegedly involved in a series of human rights abuses, including the use of slave labour, deforestation, land grabbing and cattle laundering for over a decade. The Seronni’s wealth was gained at the expense of the Amazon deforestation, as well as the exploitation of slave labour.

Grupo Mastrotto, a large Italian producer of leather and upholstery to the clothing, footwear, automotive and boat industries, was also identified as an importer of JBS’s leather linked to the deforestation of the Amazon. Mastrotto supplies the Volkswagen Group, owner of Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Seat and Skoda. Other customers include Toyota and Ikea.

The meat industry wouldn’t be able to operate without the support of international finance. The UK, EU and US based-financiers continue to funnel billions to JBS, Marfrig and Minerva, including Barclays, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Dimensional Fund Advisors Group, Fidelity Management, HSBC, JP Morgan, BlackRock, Santander, Vanguard Group, and many more.

French bank, BNP Paribas, was given a formal notice by NGOs for financing Brazilian beef giant Marfrig, implicated in illegal deforestation, indigenous land rights violations and slave labour.

“Banks can no longer pretend they don’t know that their financing and investments fuel deforestation and climate chaos”, said Jérémie Suissa, director of the French organization Notre Affaire à Tous.

Trade data accessed by Global Witness also revealed that in 2020 alone, JBS exported beef products to 160 companies in Europe, 30% went to the UK.

Supermarkets in Europe, the US and the UK are responsible for selling products linked to the Amazon and Cerrado deforestation, including Aldi, Asda, Carrefour, Costco, Iceland, Morrisons, M&S, Tesco and Walmart, amongst others.

Food service companies are also accountable for selling branded and unbranded products sourced from deforested areas in the Amazon and Cerrado regions. They include Burger King, KFC, McDonald’s, Nando’s, Outback Steakhouse, Pizza Hut, Subway, Wendy’s and many more.

According to a damming report by Repórter Brasil, McDonald’s: The Footprint of a Giant, McDonald’s supply chain is exposed to several risks of violations related to Brazil’s rural reality. Deforestation, slave labour, violations of labour laws, and damage to traditional communities are part of the risks directly or indirectly linked to the network that supplies their restaurants.

A Final Appeal

*Photo 90934032 © Wanida Prapan | Dreamstime.com*

The reality is that we can’t continue doing business as usual and must take immediate action, as the consequences are far too great to our planet and the next generations, some of them already irreversible.

NGOs, researchers, scientists and specialists have proposed various recommendations and solutions to the problem, but the ones accountable for the deforestation and degradation of the Amazon rainforest and Cerrado regions constantly ignore them.

Some of the recommendations by various NGOs, including Mighty Earth and Global Witness outlined below:

• Governments should introduce legislation requiring businesses to identify, prevent, mitigate and report on deforestation and human rights risks, tackling the role of imported products driving deforestation globally.

• Investors, banks and financiers must divest from JBS, Marfrig and Minerva and its subsidiaries excluding them from their investment funds and bond portfolios.

• Supermarkets, retailers and food service companies must drop these companies as a meat supplier.

• The Brazilian government must divest all financing for these companies via BNDES development bank, must introduce enforceable rules against deforestation and introduce strict regulatory limits on mega and factory farm methane emissions.

• JBS, Marfrig and Minerva must disclose its direct and indirect emissions fully, including carbon dioxide and methane, and allow an independent third party to verify their company’s emissions claims.

Carlos Nobre, renowned Brazilian earth scientist, who spent the last four decades dedicated to research studying the Amazon rainforest and its impacts on the earth system and 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner, has a message to the international community:

“Responsible consumption is key. The international community must continue to play an important role on sustainable consumption and not purchase any products that come from deforested areas.”

A final message from Lucas Ferrante, Brazilian ecologist and researcher, who published several studies on the Amazon rainforest and Cerrado:

“Countries that import commodities from Brazil need to review their trade agreements, mainly for meat, soy, ores, biofuels and now oil and its derivatives that come from the Amazon. Brazilian agribusiness has become a threat to the Amazon, to traditional peoples and to the global climate.”

We are facing multiple challenges ahead of us, none of them simple to solve, requiring total transparency, good will and power to make the essential and effective changes that will create a positive meaningful impact on the future of our planet and humanity.

We can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to these issues, as the result of our inaction will profoundly impact the future of our children!

*Photo 69667961 © André Costa | Dreamstime.com*

BR-319: A Threat to the Survival of the Amazon Rainforest

Monica Piccinini

10 Oct 2022

Environmental and human rights violations may have been committed as a result of one of the Amazon rainforest most gigantic and ambitious infrastructure projects, the reconstruction of BR-319 highway, a stretch of 830 km, connecting the ‘arc of deforestation’ in the southern Amazon to the capital, Manaus.

There are many national and international supporters and financiers with hidden interests behind the reconstruction of this extensive highway project, including a Russian state-owned oil and gas company, a bioenergy company, ‘ruralistas’ (large land-holders and their representatives), illegal miners and loggers, investors, politicians, the government, and many more. Their motivation is driven by profit and power, no matter how much it costs.

The Amazon rainforest plays a key role in controlling both South America’s rainfall and global climate. In addition, the rainforest is home to a third of the world’s biodiversity and a wide variety of indigenous people.

The rainforest has lost more than 830,000 sq km, corresponding to 21% of the forest and roughly 17% is already degraded.

According to Carlos Nobre, renowned earth system scientist, the Amazon rainforest, one of the most biodiverse places on earth, is on the edge of the precipice, showing clear signs of destruction and perilously close to a tipping point of irreversible collapse, triggered by deforestation, degradation, forest fires, logging, illegal cattle ranching, mining, and oil and gas developments.

BR-319 connects Manaus, in central Amazon, to Porto Velho, in the “arc of deforestation”, on the southern edge of the forest. The highway is a free path to illegal side roads in areas of large concentration of indigenous land, legal reserves and conservation units, giving illegal miners, loggers, squatters and land grabbers access to untouched forest.

As a consequence, these invaders are bringing a wave of destruction, instability, pollution, violence, disease, decay and death to the communities and the environment around them.

The highway was inaugurated in March 1976, during the military dictatorship and under the government of General Ernesto Geisel, and abandoned in 1988. In 2015, Dilma Roussef’s (Labour party) government proposed reopening BR-319.

“BR-319 cuts through one of the most conserved blocks of the forest where it contains an enormous stock of carbon. This project is a threat to 63 indigenous lands and 18,000 indigenous people, not to mention the environment and biodiversity”, said ecologist and researcher, Lucas Ferrante, during our interview this month.

According to Ferrante, who took part of a study published at the Die Erde – Journal of the Geographic Society of Berlin, neither environmental studies nor consultation with indigenous peoples were carried out for some sections of the highway, as established by ILO Convention 169.

Ferrante published various academic studies independently and conjointly with Philip Martin Fearnside, a researcher at the National Institute for Research in the Amazon (Inpa) and Nobel Peace Prize winner (2007), on the impacts the BR-319 project will bring to the Amazon, the environment, indigenous communities and the world.

The reconstruction of BR-319 does not have an economic feasibility study (EVTEA). Independent studies show that for every R$1,00 spent on the highway, the ROI is only R$0,33, mentioned Ferrante.

The main transport route used has always been via the Madeira River, making it a cheaper and safer way to transport goods. In his view, the highway project would be a huge social, economic and ecological disaster.

A study published at the Environmental Conservation, indicates that Brazil could lose more than US$1 billion a year in agricultural production if deforestation in the Amazon region is not contained.

“We have already identified that the Amazon rainforest has passed its tolerated limit of deforestation. The flying rivers that supply the south and southeastern regions of Brazil are already compromised, including an area of the arc of deforestation, corroborating changes and climate events within the country, even affecting agribusiness”, said Ferrante.

According to Ferrante and various studies, one additional topic of great concern, as exploitation of indigenous lands increases, is the risk of new pandemics. The Amazon rainforest is considered a possible source of the next pandemic, as deforestation offers opportunities for disease agents from the region’s large reservoir of different types of coronavirus and various other pathogens to jump into the human population.

The Amazon interior has a precarious healthcare system, making the surge of a new pandemic originating in this region extremely difficult to identify and contain.

Supporters

Photo 120282222 © Arseniy Rogov | Dreamstime.com

A company with many interests in supporting the reconstruction of BR-319 is Russian state-owned Rosneft, one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world.

Rosneft’s CEO, Igor Sechin, is considered to be the second most powerful man in Russia after Putin. In February 2022, just before Russia invaded Ukraine, Bolsonaro travelled to Russia to meet with Putin to discuss a possible energy partnership.

BR-319 highway gives access to AM-366, a planned state highway that passes through the first drilling blocks of “Solimoes Sedimentary Basin” project for oil and gas extraction, an area larger than the state of California. Rosfnet bought 16 blocks in this area.

This is a project of huge concern, as questions are raised about how much influence Rosneft may have on the government’s policies and decisions on the reconstruction of this highway, as well as the impact it may have on the local communities and the environment.

Millenium Bioenergia is another strong supporter of BR-319 reconstruction project. A bioenergy company formed in 2014 by mill owners from São Paulo and grain producers from the Midwest, the company’s initial focus was the production of biofuels. However, the company decided to partner with the indigenous communities to produce corn, chicken, fish and pigs in a confined system. This is the perfect recipe to trigger new pandemics as a result of zoonotic leaps due to environmental degradation.

In the states of Amazonas and Roraima, their goal is to produce biofuels from monocultures in indigenous lands and other communities. According to their plan, indigenous people and communities would carry out these activities with unpaid work or, as one would openly describe it, slave labour. These products would then be exported to Asia, Europe and the United States.

According to a study published by Springer, Millenium has not honoured its obligation to carry out environmental studies that are legally required for the installation of an industry. Instead, they have proposed the building of a hospital for the indigenous people as a form of compensation.

The government’s ‘death agenda’ includes abolishing the legal reserves and opening conservation units and indigenous lands to mining, agriculture and ranching.

Jair Bolsonaro’s government, with the full support of ‘ruralistas’, has intentionally weakened the country’s environmental agencies and forest code, also denying the existence of climate change.

They have reduced protected areas, cut government funds for environmental protection, weakened the systems for monitoring and combating environmental crimes, approved 1682 new pesticides, leaving an open door to pollution, deforestation, violence, crime and devastation across the region and communities in the Amazon and the rest of the country.

Politicians in Manaus and across the country claim that BR-319 would be a “model of sustainability for the world”, but indications and studies carried out so far suggest otherwise. They follow the same rhetoric, stating the highway is a symbol of progress and sovereignty, and that the Amazon rainforest belongs to Brazil, no foreign interference should be allowed.

Violence & Crime

Photo 245527759 / Amazon Indian Brazil © J Brarymi | Dreamstime.com

BR-319 has brought crime and violence to this region by illegal miners, loggers, squatters and land grabbers, threatening to kill anyone who refuses to comply with their rules.

According to Ferrante, the highway also attracted criminal gangs and organised crime to the area, with the full participation of high scale politicians.

There are countless national and international organisations financing illegal mining associated with drug and illegal arms trafficking. Organised crime has exploded and taken over the Amazon rainforest.

Bolsonaro’s gun law, the CAC (Collectors, Snipers and Hunters) license, allows Brazilians to purchase a wide variety of guns if they have no criminal record, are registered with a shooting club, and can demonstrate proficiency with a firearm.

The loosening of firearms restrictions law is creating new mechanisms for criminal groups to purchase weapons legally, consequently increasing violence in the Amazon and Brazil.

Another issue of concern is the maintenance of clandestine airstrips, mainly for mining and also serving organised crime.

According to information obtained by The Intercept, the Pulitzer Center and Earthrise Media, there are 362 clandestine airstrips, without registration with Anac, the National Aviation Agency, in the Legal Amazon. But this number almost triples, if you consider the runways open without authorisation and registration, amounting to at least 1,269 landing and takeoff lanes.

Indigenous and traditional communities are also victims of constant violent verbal and physical threats, sometimes ending in fatalities, but they are not the only ones.

Ferrante, a scientist who has spent many years exposing the situation in the region by publishing his studies in academic journals, was faced with various threats and violence against his own life.

He received countless death threats by anonymous calls and text. A “fake” Uber driver told Ferrante he should keep quiet because he was interfering in national security matters. Chemicals thrown into his home’s water system also poisoned him. Ferrante was terrified and withdrawn, unable to go out for a few months.

There is not doubt the BR-319 reconstruction project will impact local traditional and indigenous communities, as well as the environment, biodiversity and climate change, with very serious consequences to Brazil the rest of the world.

National and International Players

Photo 12998338 © Alain Lacroix | Dreamstime.com

Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of beef and soy, which are the two commodities responsible for 90% the Amazon rainforest deforestation. Research shows that 70% of the chopped down Amazon is populated by cattle.

It’s essential to understand that the reconstruction of BR-319 highway has a national as well as an international long list of powerful supporters defending their own interests.

Agribusiness Watch report reveals that international banks and funds are financing Brazil’s agribusiness lobby in the country, including JP Morgan Chase, BlackRock, and Bank of America, each having invested US$1 billion in livestock. American International Group, AIG and Citigroup are also provider of funds to Brazilian agribusiness companies.

European investors include Allianz and Deutsche Bank, Barclays, Standard Chartered, BBVA, Santander, BNP Paribas, ABN-Amro and Rabobank, among others, have invested $4.5 billion in IPA companies, part of Instituto Pensar Agro, supporting FPA (Agricultural Parliamentary Front) and responsible for a package of anti-environmental measures being considered in the Brazilian Congress.

The report also lists various companies, including JBS, Suzano, Marfrig, ADM and Cargill that use their influence in Brazilian politics against the interests of environmental policies and indigenous groups.

Brazilian banks financing the agribusiness sector include BTG Pactual, Safra, Verde Asset Management, Vinci Partners, and XP Investimentos, maintaining bonds estimated at US$ 9.3 billion.

According to De Olho nos Ruralistas, in 2019, Agribusiness Watch revealed some of the multinationals that were affiliated by associations that maintain the IPA (Instituto Pensar Agro): Bayer, Basf and Syngenta, Cargill, Bunge, ADM and Louis Dreyfus; JBS, Marfrig, Nestlé and Danone.

During Bolsonaro’s administration, agribusiness companies met 278 times with government officials of MAPA, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply. Part of the agenda was the relaxation of rules for pesticides.

There’s no doubt that the reconstruction of BR-319 will benefit most of the above mentioned players, who continuously support and invest in the agribusiness sector in Brazil, including banks, agrochemical companies, governments, politicians and corporations, in Brazil and abroad.

The same can’t be said about the environment, climate change, local traditional and indigenous communities and the entire world population, who will pay a hefty price for these callous actions.

The Road Ahead

Photo 179525881
© Mariusz Prusaczyk | Dreamstime.com

This is a decisive political moment for Brazil and the world, as the second term of the presidential elections draws to a close at the end of October and Brazilians will be choosing their next president, Jair Bolsonaro or Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula), both battling for the pole position.

Ferrante mentioned what may happen if Lula is elected Brazil’s next president:

“I was present during Lula’s statement during his visit to Manaus in September 2022, when he mentioned that he will choose three major infrastructure projects for each state in Brazil, mainly roads, which means the BR-319 highway project may be on the top of his list. He explicitly said that he isn’t against the highway, but the environmental rites and the consultation of indigenous peoples must be followed”,

“The BR-319 highway project is at a very advanced stage. We urgently need the suspension of the maintenance license, pending appropriate studies and consultations with indigenous peoples. It is necessary to create a task force to supervise the actions of INCRA, the National Institute for Colonisation and Agrarian Reform and the Ministry of the Economy, as they continuously try to legalise these lands”, added Ferrante.

When asked about the message he has to the international community, Ferrante replied:

“Countries that import commodities from Brazil need to review their trade agreements, mainly for meat, soy, ores, biofuels and now oil and its derivatives that come from the Amazon, extracted by Rosfnet. Brazilian agribusiness has become a threat to the Amazon, to traditional peoples and to the global climate”,

He added:

“All countries in the world need to turn their eyes to what is happening in the Amazon now, especially on the BR-319 highway. This is a matter for the world to discuss because the consequences of this highway are global, including new pandemic outbreaks and accelerating climate change that is already causing waves of heat leading to mortality in Europe. The environmental damage caused here exceeds the borders of Brazil and should be monitored by the whole world”.

Photo 106303117 / Amazon Rainforest Indigenous © Vkilikov | Dreamstime.com

UK Supermarkets Urged to Remove Killer Pesticides from their Soya Supply Chains Linked to Mass Poisonings in the Amazon

Monica Piccinini

28 Apr 2022

Demand from British food consumers are unknowingly fuelling the poisoning of people and wildlife in the Amazon in a “hidden scandal”, according to the Soil Association.

Chicken sold in a number of UK supermarkets is reared on soya feed grown in toxic pesticide heavy lands within Brazil’s Amazon region, highlights the Soil Association‘s new ‘Stop Poison Poultry’ campaign.

Launching a petition calling for action, Soil Association Campaigns Advisor, Cathy Cliff, said: “British shoppers should be able to walk into a supermarket and buy food that isn’t harming children, killing bees, or threatening rare and treasured wildlife thousands of miles away”.

According to a Soil Association survey carried out in January 2022, none of the 10 leading UK supermarkets are monitoring or restricting the use of highly hazardous pesticides in their soya supply chains. Soya linked to pesticide poisonings in Brazil is exported to the UK to feed livestock, primarily chickens.

“Our research has found that the 10 leading UK supermarkets are all ensnared in a broken system that is damaging communities, animals and ecosystems. British retailers are already taking good steps to address deforestation in their soya supply chains, and now we need them to address these hazardous pesticides”, said Cathy.

“The scale of highly hazardous pesticide use in Brazil is terrifying, as is our chicken’s industry reliance on these soya crops. It is a hidden scandal that both British shoppers and farmers are largely blind to, and it must no continue – we must stop the poisoning associated with UK poultry farming”, added Cathy.

Brazil is the world’s third largest user of pesticides, only behind China and the US.

President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration has recently incorporated a presidential decree amending the 1989 pesticides law, by making the approval process of pesticides even more flexible, including the approval of chemicals that have already been banned in other countries.

Most of the pesticides used on Brazilian soya are banned for use in the UK, but some are being produced and sold abroad by companies operating out of Britain and Europe.

One example is highly hazardous pesticide paraquat, which is manufactured by Chinese ChemChina owned Syngenta in Huddersfield, banned for use in the UK and associated with poisonings abroad.

Recently, the Landworkers’ Alliance (LWA), representing smaller and ecological farmers, has demanded the UK government stops the export of paraquat and other pesticides that are banned for use in the UK, but still made here.

Brazil, Soya and Pesticides

The Amazon region has been suffering from deforestation due to many official policies, with large natural areas replaced by monoculture with an indiscriminate spread of pesticides. Soy cultivation is a major driver of deforestation in the Amazon basin, with 80% destined for animal feed.

Soya beans are Brazil’s largest export to the UK, worth approximately 220 million USD in 2020 and these crops account for 60% of the country’s pesticide use. Brazil’s pesticide use has risen to a staggering 900% since 1990.

These chemicals are contaminating surface and groundwater, the soil, killing bees, bugs, and the animals that eat those insects, are being found with a cocktail of chemicals in their bodies. Between 2013 and 2017, more than 1 billion bees were lost due to pesticide poisoning in Brazil, including honeybees and wild bees.

According to ABRASCO, the Brazilian Association of Public Health, 70,000 people, including children, who are usually the most severely affected, suffer from acute and chronic pesticide poisonings in Brazil every year.

There are 150 pesticide products approved by the Brazilian government for use on soya. Of the 22 most commonly used in Brazilian soya production, 80% are classified as ‘highly hazardous’, and of these 66% are not approved for use in the EU or UK, including:

Paraquat, a herbicide which is ‘fatal if inhaled’, associated with farmer suicides, and exported by Syngenta, a company operating out of Britain;
Acefate, an organophosphate (OP) insecticide used on food crops, as well as a seed treatment. It’s known to be ‘highly toxic to bees’;
Chlorpyrifos (CPF), a broad-spectrum chlorinated organophosphate (OP), known to be ‘highly toxic to bees’ and ‘probably carcinogenic to humans’;
Diuron, a herbicide ‘likely to be carcinogenic to humans at high doses’;
Imadacloprid, an insecticide known to be ‘highly toxic to bees’.

The Brazilian Association of Collective Health estimates that pesticides contaminate approximately 70% of food consumed by Brazilians, and they drink nearly 7.5 L of pesticides per year – the highest per capita consumption rate in the world.

According to a recent study published by MDPI, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, there are numerous toxic effects of pesticides, particularly inflicting rural workers, inducing from hematological abnormalities, DNA damage, cell death, skin and eye irritations, pain, infertility, altered hormone levels, fatigue, tremours, hearing loss, neurological symptoms, miscarriage, fetal malformation, effects on cardiac, muscular and development of related metabolic diseases, overweight, underweight, insulin resistance, diabetes and various types of cancer.

*Source: MDPI – Impacts of Pesticides on Human Health in the Last Six Years in Brazil (March 2022)*

The Soil Association is calling for UK supermarkets to ‘clean’ UK supply chains, has lined up some proposals/solutions to be taken by the government in order to address this issue. They are also asking for the British public to get involved and sign the petition.

We are living challenging times and it’s often easy to forget how much we are all connected and how much we influence each other’s lives and the world.

Our actions as consumers have a strong direct impact not only on our health, but also on the health of people living some 5,529 miles away in Brazil, as well as on wildlife and the environment. It’s up to us to get involved and make powerful positive changes to all living creatures and our planet!

The Soil Association‘s full report: https://www.soilassociation.org/media/23919/stop-poison-poultry-report-final-220222.pdf

London’s Alarming ‘Cocktail’ of Toxic Pesticides

Monica Piccinini

5 Apr 2022

London councils are risking the health of residents and wildlife by spraying ‘cocktail’ of toxic pesticides.

According to Pesticide Action Network UK, recently released information reveals that London’s local authorities are using a staggering 22 potentially harmful chemicals to remove weeds on London’s streets, parks and playgrounds.

The list includes seven pesticides linked to cancer and nine groundwater contaminants threatening aquatic wildlife.

Glyphosate, a synthetic herbicide, was found to be the most commonly used pesticide with over 26,000 litres, equivalent to 130 bath tubs – sprayed in London’s public spaces over the past three years.

In 2017, the World Health Organisation labelled glyphosate a ‘probable human carcinogen’. Since then, the manufacturer, Bayer/Monsanto, has been battling with billion dollar lawsuits from thousands of plaintiffs alleging that exposure to the company’s glyphosate-based products caused non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

“It is absolutely clear that glyphosate can cause cancers in experimental animals”, affirmed former Director of the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Chris Portier, who worked on the IARC, International Agency for Research and Cancer review on glyphosate.

“And the human evidence for an association between glyphosate and cancer is also there, predominantly for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma”, added Portier.

Pesticides can impact our health; they are capable of causing different types of cancer, including leukaemia and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, are endocrine disruptors, which interferes with hormone systems, therefore causing birth defects, developmental disorders, infertility and sexual function.

In addition, they are considered a neurotoxin affecting nerve tissues and the nervous system. Children and expectant mothers are the most susceptible to the effects of pesticides.

A recent study published in Environmental Research demonstrates that exposure to glyphosate and its breakdown product reduces pregnancy length, increasing the risk of preterm birth. Preterm births occur when a fetus is born early or before 37 weeks of complete gestation.

“We are in the midst of a biodiversity crisis with species such as bees declining rapidly and pesticides named as a key driver. We also know that children are more vulnerable to the impacts of pesticides because their bodies are still developing. But despite these serious public health and environmental concerns, most London councils are routinely using chemical weed-killers for no other reason than keeping places looking ‘neat and tidy’”, said Nick Mole from PAN UK.

YouGov polling released alongside PAN UK’s research reveals that half (49%) of Londoners would support a ban on the use of weed-killers in their local area, with just 18% opposing. Approximately one third (32%) didn’t know whether they would support a ban, highlighting there’s still lack of information on the subject, as councils are not obliged to notify residents when spraying is taking place.

Source: Data presented based on PAN UK collation and analysis of the Freedom of Information requests to thirty-two London borough councils in September and October 2021. 31 councils responded (all but Ealing Council).

The good news is that there are already more than 40 UK councils which have gone pesticide-free, including the London Boroughs of Hammersmith and Fulham in 2016, and most recently Lambeth.

“While it’s encouraging to see so many councils take steps to make parks safer for people and wildlife alike, there is a real lack of joined-up thinking. Our capital’s pavements remain largely forgotten and continue to be sprayed often, just meters away from people’s doorsteps and designated ‘wildlife-friendly’ spaces. Councils are letting residents down and undermining their own positive efforts to support nature”, mentioned Emma Pavans de Ceccatty from PAN UK.

In the run-up to the 2021 London Mayoral elections, candidates from all political parties publicly agreed that ending pesticide use was a vital steep to meeting challenges linked to climate, nature restoration and the health and well-being of people using green spaces.

Sadly, PAN UK’s research reveals that more than two-thirds of councils have no plans to stop spraying the streets with toxic pesticides.

Dr. Marcos Orellana, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on toxics and human rights, identifies a non-toxic environment as one of the substantive elements of the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment where people can live, work, study and play.

Orellana highlights State obligations, business responsibilities and good practices related to ensuring a non-toxic environment by preventing pollution, eliminating the use of toxic substances and rehabilitating contaminated sites.

With one month to go until London local elections, Londoners should secure commitments from candidates to phase out pesticide use. PAN UK is urging voters to attend borough events to call on their prospective councillors to support going pesticide-free.

As we continue to face the effects of multiple crises, including the Covid-19 pandemic, a conflict in the Ukraine, an economic, energy and climate crisis, we must make every effort to remain focused on our right to live in a clean and safe environment.

Hidden Hazard in UK Diet a Threat to Your Health

Monica Piccinini

30 Mar 2022

‘Seeing is believing’; a widely used phrase and highlights a human characteristic that is perhaps at the heart of some significant health threats humanity is facing.

The current Covid-19 pandemic has brought many to the realisation that ‘invisible’ threats can be killers and safety can only be achieved through a belief in the invisible, followed by a series of steps to protect oneself against the danger, i.e. mask wearing, social distancing and vaccinations. When there is nothing to see, should we deny existence? Another such obscure killer is the wide spread use of toxic pesticides.

Pesticides have been used for centuries in various settings; in agriculture, sprayed on our lawns, parks and playing fields, streets, pavements, public spaces, etc.

Thanks to science and extensive research, we now have a much deeper and wider knowledge of the damage pesticides can cause not only to our health, but also to biodiversity, the air we breath, the water we drink, soil, plants, wildlife and everything else it touches.

How are we exposed to pesticides and what are their effects?

Exposure to pesticides can occur in various ways: by inhalation (breathing), dermal (absorbed by our skins), or ingestion (water and food).

These chemicals can cause acute toxicity, meaning that after one single episode of inhalation, ingestion or skin contact, it can cause harmful or lethal effects. The results can be presented as an allergic reaction; eye and skin irritation, headaches, and in extreme reactions confusion and loss of consciousness, respiratory complications, seizures and death.

They can also cause chronic toxicity (long term), after being exposed over a long period of time. Long-term exposure has been linked to many health issues, including depression, anxiety, ADHD, Parkinson’s disease, asthma, attention deficit and cancer, including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and leukaemia.

Pesticides used in agriculture can leave traces of chemicals in our food known as residues. Residues detected on a specific food item will depend which pesticides are used and how persistent they are. Some food may contain one single residue or multiple ones (‘cocktail effect’).

An alternative to consuming food containing different types of pesticide residues is to opt for organic products. Obviously, not everyone is able to afford them.

Are pesticides eliminated after peeling and washing fruit and vegetables?

Washing and peeling may reduce exposure, but some residues are present not just on the surface, but within the entire piece. So, by simply washing, it will not eliminate residues within the food item.

According to Pesticide Action Network UK, 123 different pesticide residues were found in our food in the UK, some of which are linked to serious health problems, such as cancer and disruption of the hormone system (endocrine disruption), including reduction of semen quality and fertility, genital malformations, prostate cancer, diabetes, obesity, early puberty, cysts in the ovaries, uterus anomalies, breast cancer, hyper and hypo thyroidism and thyroid tumours.

We should all be aware of the implications caused by ingesting food containing not only one but also multiple pesticides (‘cocktail effect’), especially if consumed over a long period of time, during our childhood, adult life and especially during pregnancy.

The ‘Dirty Dozen’

Pesticide Action Network UK have produced a list of the ‘dirtiest’ fruit and vegetables based on UK government data, revealing the percentage of samples that contain residues of more than one pesticide. The list is called the ‘Dirty Dozen’. The results reveal a staggering amount of pesticides found on the ‘Dirty Dozen’ products, more than one hundred different types.

Based on data from PAN UK analysis in September 2021 of the UK Government’s Expert Committee on Pesticide Residues in Food (PRiF) annual reports between 2018 and 2020, the following products are considered to contain the highest levels of pesticides residues:

Grapefruit (99%); soft citrus, such as mandarins and satsumas (96%); strawberries (89%); oranges (87%); dried grapes (82%); herbs (81%); pre-packed salad (81%); grapes (80%); lemons (75%); pears (69%); peaches and nectarines (67%), spinach (57%).

According to PAN UK, inadequacy in the UK government’s pesticide testing has been reported. The number of annual samples was reduced in over a quarter from 3,450 in 2016 to 2,460 in 2020.

There is also inconsistency in the way that some products are tested. For example, tomatoes might be tested one year and not the next, and only a small amount of tomatoes consumed in the UK are tested.

In 2020, the UK government chose to test just three types of fruit and vegetables included on the 2019 ‘Dirty Dozen’, leaving aside three-quarters of the previous year’s produce of concern.

UK trade deals

“How the UK chooses to govern pesticides will have profound implications for the health of citizens, the natural environment, and the future of UK farming”, said Sarah Haynes, collaboration coordinator at Pesticide Action Network UK.

UK trade deals with Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Mexico and the United States, may open doors to more products containing high level of pesticides.

Brazil is the world’s third largest user of pesticides, only behind China and the US, allowing almost double the amount of highly hazardous pesticides to be used (131), compared to the UK (73). For instance, lemons grown in Brazil have 200 times the amount of insecticide dimethoate than in the UK. Dimethoate has been linked to cancer and is banned in the UK.

A total of 33 organophosphates (synthetic compounds that are neurotoxic in humans) are permitted in Australia, 26 in the US and 4 in the UK and EU. Australian grapes can contain 6,000 times the amount of the fungicide iprodione than UK grapes. Iprodione is linked to cancer and is a suspected endocrine disrupter.

Canadian wheat is allowed to contain 100 times the amount of the herbicide diuron than UK wheat. Diuron is a suspected endocrine disruptor with links to cancer. It can also negatively impact sexual function and fertility.

“This flies in the face of Government promises not to sign a trade deal which compromises UK environmental protection and food standards. After all the warm words, it looks like the UK-Australia trade deal will finally reveal which standards the Government is willing to fight for. Any weakening of pesticide standards in an Australia deal makes it all but inevitable we will do the same with the CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership), allowing sub-standard imports from 11 countries”, said Josie Cohen, Head of Policy and Campaigns at PAN UK.

These trade deals have greater ramifications. It means UK farmers will have to compete with cheaper products containing higher level of pesticides, forcing them to follow the same route or forced to get out of business altogether. This will be catastrophic for everyone.

According to a report released in January 2022 by the United Nations Human Rights Council, the toxification of planet Earth is intensifying. While a few toxic substances have been banned or are being phased out, the overall production, use and disposal of hazardous chemicals continues to increase rapidly.

Production of chemicals doubled between 2000 and 2017, and is expected to double again by 2030 and triple by 2050. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the result of this growth will be increased exposure and worsening health and environmental impacts unless ambitious, urgent and worldwide collaborative action is taken by all stakeholders and in all countries.

Why is it that pesticides, which are a class of chemicals, do not have to go through a testing regime similar to the clinical trials that pharmaceutical drugs are put through? Someone must urgently answer this question!

Toxic Side Effects of a UK-Brazil Free Trade Agreement

Monica Piccinini

23 Feb 2022

A recently released report from Pesticide Action Network (PAN-UK), reveals that a potential trade deal between the UK and Brazil is being considered. If a trade deal between both countries goes ahead, the UK population could be consuming products containing higher level of pesticides, which could have a direct impact not only on public health, but also on the environment.

“The UK Trade Secretary is promoting trade with Brazil as providing ‘real opportunities to go further on green trade’. Meanwhile, Brazil’s overuse of highly toxic pesticides is contributing to the destruction of the Amazon and other crucially important ecosystems, contaminating water and poisoning farmworkers and communities. And yet the government has provided no detail on how it will ensure that Brazilian food sold on UK shelves is not contributing to the global climate and nature crises”, said Josie Cohen, Head of Policy and Campaigns at Pesticide Action Network, PAN UK.

Brazil is the world’s third largest user of pesticides, only behind China and the US, allowing almost double the amount of highly hazardous pesticides, HHP’s, to be used (131), compared to the UK (73). For instance, lemons grown in Brazil have 200 times the amount of insecticide dimethoate than in the UK. Dimethoate has been linked to cancer and is banned in the UK.

The UK already imports large amounts of food (meat, fruit and vegetables) and soya for animal feed from Brazil. Food imports are subject to UK safety limits for the amount of pesticides residues allowed to a particular item, but no limits are placed on feed.

Soya beans are Brazil’s largest export to the UK, worth approximately 220 million USD in 2020. The majority of it is genetically modified (GM), and at least 90 per cent of it is fed to animals.

A large amount of the meat British people buy, including beef, dairy and chicken reared in the UK, have been fed on soya grown on deforested land using toxic pesticides.

“Most UK consumers have no idea that some of the meat they are eating has been fed on soya grown using highly toxic chemicals. Right now, the UK government is talking a good game on reducing pesticide harms in the UK, but appears to have no problem with exporting our environmental and human health footprints to Brazil”, mentioned Vicky Hird, Sustainable Farming Campaign Coordinator at Sustain.

In February 2021, Defra signed a “memorandum of understanding” with the Brazilian government with the intention to facilitate trade in agribusiness between Brazil and the UK. The Brazilian agriculture minister, Tereza Cristina Corrêa da Costa Dias, nicknamed by Brazilians as “poison muse”, said that the UK would eventually become more aligned with international rules on food safety.

“The UK government continues to pursue increased agricultural trade with Brazil, but the intensification of agricultural production there has been linked with deforestation and highly hazardous pesticides which harm wildlife and ecosystems. The UK should ensure that it is not contributing to the problem”, said Dr. Emily Lydgate, specialist in environmental law at the University of Sussex.

Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, has continuously developed a close and special relationship with pesticides. He recently incorporated a presidential decree (10.833/2021), amending the 1989 pesticides law, by making the approval process of pesticides even more flexible, including the approval of chemicals that have already been banned in the US and Europe.

With the new amendment, chemicals that cause cancer, genetic mutations and fetal malformation, will be given approval to be used as well as manufactured, if a “safe exposure limit” is determined.

Additionally, the current Brazilian legislation does not provide for a minimum period for the renewal of pesticides licensing. Pesticides that have been in the Brazilian market for more than 4 decades are still being used today, without ever undergoing an assessment of environmental and health issues.

The approval process of pesticides in Brazil has never been made easier, as more power has been given to the Ministry of Agriculture on the decision making process, leaving ANVISA (National Health Surveillance Agency) and IBAMA (Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) excluded from the final decision.

An increase in agriculture exports from Brazil to the UK may also pose a threat to British agriculture, increasing the pressure on farmers to escalate the use of pesticides to compete with cheaper products grown on a larger scale.

Beef and soya production in Brazil plays a major role in the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, as well as devastation of the Cerrado region, the home of 5% of the world’s plant and animal species.

Pesticides have also contaminated Brazilian water. According to a 2021 study, freshwater bodies in 80% of Brazilian states are now contaminated with herbicides such as glyphosate, posing a direct threat to aquatic species and ecosystems.

Drinking water in Brazil can contain glyphosate levels of up to 500 micrograms per litre. In the UK, the current for drinking water is 0.1 microgram per litre, 5000 times lower than the level in Brazil.

Another catastrophe reported on a regular basis is the countless poisoning incidents in Brazil caused by pesticides aerial spraying. A report published by Publica estimated that between 2007 and 2017, pesticides poisoned approximately 6,500 children, all under the age of 14.

In September 2020, Science Direct reported adverse effects of pesticides on the function of our immune system, which could affect how we fight Covid-19. Additionally, a new study performed in human lung airway cells is one of the first to show a potential link between exposure to organophosphate pesticides and increased susceptibility to COVID-19 infection.

“We have identified a basic mechanism linked with inflammation that could increase susceptibility to COVID-19 infection among people exposed to organophosphates,” said Saurabh Chatterjee, PhD, from the University of South Carolina and a research health specialist at the Columbia VA Medical Center and leader of the research team.

Pesticide Action Network UK has made some key recommendations to the UK government, including putting additional measures in place to ensure that Brazilian agricultural imports are not driven pesticide-related harms to either human health or the environment in Brazil.

Another proposal would be not allowing any weakening of UK pesticide standards as a result of an increase in trade with Brazil and preventing UK farmers from being disadvantaged by cheap food imports produced to weaker pesticide standards in Brazil.

The impact pesticides cause to our health and the environment is undeniable. It doesn’t only affect human life, but also the Amazon rainforest, the Cerrado, the soil, the air, wildlife and the water, speeding up the destruction of the world’s most precious ecosystems.

We only have one life and one planet. It is our duty to protect them both in order to guarantee our survival!

Chemical Explosion in Brazil

Monica Piccinini

2 Nov 2021

Pesticides are silent, invisible and ruthless killers. They are chemicals that can have a long lasting and tragic effect on one’s life as well as creating irreversible consequences to our precious environment.

These chemicals are sold in large amounts at huge profit by the callous agrochemical industry, without extensive, thorough, transparent and independent investigations.

Why is it that pesticides, which are a class of chemicals, do not have to go through a testing regime similar to the clinical trials that pharmaceutical drugs are put through?

Recently, the EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency) announced they will end the use of chlorpyrifos, a broad-spectrum chlorinated organophosphate, as it’s associated with neurodevelopmental problems and impaired brain function in children. Some countries continue to use this toxic chemical, including Brazil.

Brazil has been the country with the highest consumption of pesticides since 2008. In 2020 alone, the agrochemical industry’s turnover was over US$ 12.1 billion. The area treated with pesticides increased 6.9% in 2020, compared to the previous year, to an area of 1.6 billion hectares. A staggering 1.05 million tons of pesticides were applied in the country in 2020.

Fossil fuels and green house gases are great contributors to climate change, but Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHP’s), which affect the health of large parts of the population and our environment, have gone largely unrecognised.

Agrochemical organisations across the world, along with the agribusiness industry are making substantial profits at the expense of people’s lives and health, as well as contributing to damage to wildlife, water contamination, environmental degradation and biodiversity loss.

Bayer, BASF, Syngenta, Corteva and FMC, members of Croplife International lobby group, are the world’s five largest agrochemical companies.

Jair Bolsonaro’s Poisonous Package

The Pesticides Law in Brazil established in 1989, was defined as:

“The products and agents of physical, chemical or biological processes, intended for use in the sectors of production, storage, and processing of agricultural products, in pastures, in the protection of forests, native or implanted, and of other ecosystems as well as urban environments, hydrological and industrial, whose purpose is to change the composition of flora or fauna, to preserve them from the harmful action of living beings considered deleterious; and substances and products, used as defoliants, desiccants, stimulators and growth inhibitors”.

Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, has recently incorporated a Presidential Decree 10.833/2021, amending the 1989 pesticides law, by making the approval process of pesticides even more flexible, including the approval of chemicals that have already been banned in the US and Europe.

With the new amendment, chemicals that cause cancer, genetic mutations and fetal malformation, will be given approval to be used as well as manufactured, if a “safe exposure limit” is determined.

Additionally, the current Brazilian legislation does not provide for a minimum period for the renewal of pesticides licensing. Pesticides that have been in the Brazilian market for more than 4 decades are still being used today, without ever undergoing an assessment of environmental and health issues.

It’s a fact that the approval process of pesticides has never been made easier, as more power has been given to the Ministry of Agriculture on the decision making process, leaving ANVISA (National Health Surveillance Agency) and IBAMA (Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) excluded from the final decision.

There are currently a whopping 3,477 pesticides on the Brazilian market, 40% of all chemicals were approved in the last 3 years, all under Bolsonaro’s government. In 2020 alone, 494 products were authorised, totaling 997 new products in just two years.

According to a recent joint report by IPEN (International Pollutants Elimination Network) and ABRASCO (Brazilian Association of Collective Health), 53% of pesticides licensed in Brazil between 2019 and 2020 were manufactured in China, 22.1% in Brazil, 9.4% in India, 4.5% in the United States and 3% in Israel.

Another worrying issue is the number of illegal pesticides smuggled in from China. According to a study carried out by FIESP (The Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo), at least 25% of the pesticides in Brazil are illegal, smuggled through Paraguay with Chinese origin.

In January 2021, the Department of Border Operations (DOF/PM) apprehended 3.5 tons of smuggled pesticides in Maracaju, MS. The cargo was valued at approximately USD 1.2 million, according to Campo Grande News.

“The smuggling of pesticides is growing in the country at the rate that Brazilian agriculture grows… This smuggling has become a major concern as it is no longer a small market, but a large economy controlled by specialized gangs,” director of Brazil’s Institute for the Economic and Social Development of Borders (Instituto de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social de Fronteiras – IDESF) Luciano Stremel Barros, told the Brazilian Senate in September 2019.

Accidental Poisoning, Suicide, Violence and Deaths

Highly toxic chemicals that have already been banned in many countries, including in the European Union, are still being used in Brazil. Many of these products are used as a suicide and violence tool.

Aldicarb, a carbamate insecticide and an illegal rat poison, popularly known as “chumbinho”, is one of the chemicals used not only for suicides, but also for the practice of aggression.

My auntie, a farmer, committed suicide by swallowing “chumbinho” a few years ago. By the time she was found and showing regret about her decision, it was already too late, as she met a horrible and painful death. This is not an isolated case in Brazil, and it affects the most vulnerable.

In May this year, 60 rural workers were rushed to hospital with symptoms of pesticide poisoning in the metropolitan are of Goiânia, after a plane sprayed pesticides over the fields where they worked. Most reported headaches, vomiting, dizziness and some passed out.

In 2018, 475 pesticide poisonings were reported in the State of Goiás alone. In 2019, the number rose to 516. 18% of all poisoning were caused by glyphosate. It was also reported 99 attempts of suicide with pesticides.

The number of accidents and poisonings is far worse than reported. Workers are usually reluctant to report their cases to companies or to the Brazilian Social Security Institute (INSS). Many are afraid to denounce the companies or seek justice, as it risks their employment credentials in the future. Others take the word of campaigns aimed at convincing workers that pesticides are not dangerous and that their symptoms are instead caused by stress and tiredness.

For workers without a formal contract, the situation is even worse. “When intoxication occurs, the company sends the employee home with no rights or anything. The INSS cannot make the payment of sickness benefits because there is no proof of employment,” explained Gabriel Bezerra, president of the National Confederation of Human Responsible and Rural Employees.

Toxic Substances

According to the World Health Organisation and the FAO, HHP’s are described as “pesticides that are acknowledged to present particularly high levels of acute or chronic hazards to health or the environment according to internationally accepted classification systems”.

The forms of exposure to pesticides can vary, through inhalation, dermal or oral contact, via spraying, contaminated food and water and also via a worker’s clothing. The main health effects are acute, when they appear fast, or chronic, when they appear after repeated exposure to small amounts over a long period.

Symptoms from pesticides exposure can range from mild sickness, such as skin irritation, burning, allergies, cough, chest pain, respiratory problems, mental confusion, depression, nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, diarrohea, to extreme ones, such as, endocrine disruption, congenital malformations, neuro developmental problems, Parkinson’s disease, cancer and death.

Additionally, the intensive use of pesticides influences the immunological system and industrialised food production promotes obesity and the vulnerability to COVID-19.

Glyphosate is no doubt one of the most popular pesticides in Brazil, representing 62% of the total herbicides used in the country. Glyphosate is the key ingredient in the Roundup herbicide and was first patented by Monsanto in 1974. Bayer acquired Monsanto for USD 63 billion in 2018.

According to a survey by Princeton, Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) and Insper (Insper Learning Institute), the spread of glyphosate in soybean crops led to a 5% increase in the infant mortality in South and Midwest Brazil that receive water from soy growing regions. This represents a total of 503 additional child deaths every year associated with the use of glyphosate in soybean farming.

“It is absolutely clear that glyphosate can cause cancers in experimental animals”, affirmed former Director of the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Chris Portier, who worked on the IARC, International Agency for Research on Cancer review of glyphosate. “And the human evidence for an association between glyphosate and cancer is also there, predominantly for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma”.

In the US, Bayer has been fighting billion of dollars in settlements to end lawsuits over accusations that glyphosate causes cancer.

Mexico has made the decision to ban glyphosate, which will take effect in 2024.

The list of active ingredients consumed in Brazil with the authorisation of ANVISA is alarmingly extensive, including acefate, chlorpyrifos, atrazine, 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid), diazinon, metomyl, amongst many others.

Chlorpyrifos (CPF) is also a broad-spectrum chlorinated organophosphate (OP) used in crops, vegetables, fruits, as well as households. Exposure to this chemical during pregnancy or childhood has been linked with lower birth weight and neurological changes, such as cognitive and behavioural performance.

The toxicity of CPF has also been associated with neurological disfunctions, endocrine disruption, cardiovascular diseases. It can also induce developmental and behavioural anomalies, genotoxicity, oxidative stress and hematological malignancies, as evidence by animal modeling.

CPF has been banned for use in the EU.

Atrazine has innumerous adverse effects on health, such as increased risk of miscarriage, reduced male fertility, tumours, ovarian, breast, prostate and uterine cancers, leukemia and lymphoma. It’s an endocrine disrupting chemical, causing havoc to one’s regular hormone function, causing birth defects and reproductive tumours.

A group of scientists, including Tyrone Hayes found that 10% of male frogs reared in atrazine water turned into females.

2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid is a widely used agricultural weed-killer and endocrine disruptor shown to have links to cancer, including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It was first marketed in 1945 and one of the main ingredients in the Agent Orange, used to destroy forests during the Vietnam war.

Acute symptoms of exposure to 2,4-D include coughing, burning, loss of muscle coordination, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, nervous damage, fatigue, coma and death. Additionally, poor semen quality has been associated with exposure to the chemical.

Acefate is an organophosphate (OP) insecticide used on food crops, as well as a seed treatment. People can be exposed by breathing or on their skin. Acefate has been associated with TGCT, testicular germ cell cancer, particularly strong amongst Latinos, according to a study by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

Brazilians are not the only ones being poisoned by toxic chemicals, in fact, you and your family could be consuming these toxic substances unknowingly, via products being imported into your country.

It has been reported that Germans are already consuming products containing pesticides that have already been banned in the European Union.

At the request of Greenpeace, tests were carried out at 70 Brazilian fruits sold in German cities by an independent German laboratory. 11 substances that have already been banned in the EU have been detected, totaling 35 different pesticides found in mangos, lemons, papaya and figs, 21 of those were considered Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHP’s).

In order to stop the world being poisoned by chemicals that affect our health and our environment, a tougher international regulatory system needs to be implemented, including proper thorough, independent and transparent assessments of such toxic substances.

It’s time for the greedy agrochemical industry and our governments to put our health and the health of our planet above their rapacious profit, once and for all!

COP26: another Cop Out?

Monica Piccinini

21 Oct 2021

The climate scientists drum beat of concerning data continues with an increased rhythm and it is becoming clear to all but the global leaders that we are running out of time for material action.

As COP26 approaches, national leaders across the world should be galvanising and both individually and collectively evidencing real action to deliver on prior promises and commitments. Sadly, what might be expected appears to be far from the real situation.

It is very apparent that climate change can’t be addressed by a small number of nations. Global pollution and its effects have no respect for man-made sovereign borders. Possibly, for the first time in history, the world needs to truly work together for the greater good and ultimate survival.

It’s complicated. The world needs full cooperation and commitment from the biggest polluters and the richest and most powerful nations, leaving their greed, egos and empty promises behind. In the short term, it’s those same countries that have the most to lose and need to spend the most in an altruistic manner.

It’s no coincidence that the largest economies have established themselves as powerhouses at the expense of the climate. Much of their industry depends on carbon fuels to function and importantly their infrastructure is from a time when carbon fuels were seen as the future.

So with that background and political short-termism combined, it’s no surprise that the question of climate and sustainability becomes deeply mired in protectionism, nationalism and global politics.

Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, China’s Xi Jiping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador are not expected to attend COP26. Japan’s Fumio Kishida may also be absent from the Summit, which is about to start in Glasglow, Scotland, at the end of this month.

According to an analysis by Carbon Brief on CO2 emissions from land use and forestry, as well as those from fossil fuels, it showed the US as the largest CO2 emitter in history, accounting to 20% of the global total, followed by China with 11%. In third place came Russia (7%), Brazil (5%) and Indonesia (4%).

There is a real sense of urgency, as the world has already used 85% of the CO2 budget that would give a 50% chance of limiting heating to 1.5C, according to Carbon Brief’s data.

According to the OECD, CO2 from the combustion of fossil fuels and biomass accounts for about 90% of total CO2 emissions and two thirds of total GHG emissions.

The top most powerful nations in the world, China and the US, are the top polluters, followed by India, Russia and Japan. China produces 28% of global emissions, more CO2 than all nations put together.

Will geopolitical competition between China and the US help the world tackle climate change?

China and the US should be leaving their differences aside and be focusing on setting up plans in order to tackle one of, if not the most challenging projects of our time, climate change.

The recent defense deal, the Aukus trilateral security partnership between the US, the UK and Australia, added to existing regional military tensions has not helped to soothe relations between the US and China, creating a stand-off which has the potential to evolve into a new cold war.

Additionally, issues like trade, the South China Sea, human rights, the threat of Chinese invasion in Taiwan and intellectual property theft, have contributed to more tensions and disagreement between both nations. This may impact heavily on their commitment to climate change.

President Xi Jinping has pledged to cut down emissions by 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2060, given its economic development is highly reliant on the fossil fuel industry.

More than half of all power in China is generated from coal, using 3 billion tonnes of thermal coal each year. Coal is the biggest contributor to climate change, accounting to 46% of carbon dioxide emissions across the world.

Coal is not the only concern. China produced around one billion tonnes of steel last year, which is the second most polluting industry after coal.

We can easily notice a pattern here. Chinese demand for coal is expected to increase until 2026, therefore increasing carbon emissions until 2030, contradicting the country’s emission goals. Chinese banks and corporations continue to finance and build coal-fired power plants across many countries.

Supply and demand – is it all China’s fault?

Since opening up to foreign trade and investment and implementing free-market reforms in 1979, China has become one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.

The world has actively supported China becoming its industrial heartland. Built upon cheap labour, available raw materials and a welcoming government policy, a huge percentage of commodity product manufacturing has moved to China from other historic manufacturing nations, including the US, the UK, the EU, and other nations. Servicing the demand has created pressure to build manufacturing infrastructure at the lowest cost possible, and that leads to low tech solutions like carbon based energy production.

It’s no surprise that China has rapidly become one of the biggest global polluters. Other nations have essentially pushed into China their polluting industries.

The denialistic approach

The Production Gap report released by the UN, states that governments across the world still plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 and that the majority of gas and oil producers plan on increasing production beyond 2030.

G20 countries have directed nearly USD 300 billion in new funds towards fossil fuel activities since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic — more than they have toward clean energy, which contradicts entirely to the message they have been giving us all along.

According to a leak of tens of thousands of comments by governments, corporations, academics and others on the draft report of the IPCC’s ‘Working Group III’, recently published by Unearthed, fossil fuel producers including Australia, Saudi Arabia and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), are lobbying the IPCC – the world’s leading authority on climate change – to remove or weaken a key conclusion that the world needs to rapidly phase out fossil fuels.

These scandalous and irresponsible actions go on. Australia asks the IPCC to delete analysis explaining how lobbying by fossil fuel companies has weakened action on climate change in Australia and the US. Saudi Arabia repeatedly seeks to have the report’s authors delete references to the need to phase out fossil fuels.

Brazil and Argentina, two of the world’s biggest producers of beef and animal feed crops like soya beans, have also been pressing the IPCC to water down and delete messages about the climate benefits of promoting ‘plant-based’ diets and of curbing meat and dairy consumption.

There is no slowing down. According to the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2021-2030, global GHG emissions from agriculture are projected to increase by 4% over the next ten years, with livestock accounting for more than 80% of this increase.

Meat production requires significant use of resources such as land, feed and water and is also a great contributor to climate change. By 2030, 34% of the agricultural production in Latin American and the Caribbean, is projected to be exported.

Brazil, the US and Europe are the three largest meat exporting countries. China is the world’s largest meat importer. According to the Brazilian Meat Exporting Industry Association, between January and July this year, shipments of beef from Brazil to China reached 490,000 tons and generated sales of US$2.5bn, an increase of 8.6 per cent and 13.8 per cent, respectively, compared with the same period last year.

In China, per capita beef consumption is projected to rise a further 8% by 2030, after having risen 35% in the last decade.

Brazil has been the main destination for Chinese investments in South America, having received US$ 66.1 billion, equivalent to 47% of the total invested, in the last decade until 2020.

Between 2007 and 2020, Chinese companies made large investments in Brazil, mainly in the electricity sector, which attracted 48% of the total value, followed by oil extraction, with a 28% share, and mining, with 7%.

A recently published report, The Lancet Countdown, mentioned that over a 6- month period in 2020, over 51 million people were affected by at least 84 disasters from storms, droughts and floods across the world.

The fact is that there is no going around the subject of climate change. Unless the situation we put ourselves is taken seriously and faced head on with immediate action, all of humanity faces a tragic future, or no future at all. None of the world leaders, who continuously deny the situation, will be here to tell the story.

Nature has already shown its clear message to the world with extreme weather events like floods, wild fires, volcano eruptions, death and horrific devastation across the world, including in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, across Europe, India, Russia and the US. Turning a blind eye to these events and the certainty of a much worse scenario shows total irresponsibility and disregard to life, to each one of us, as well as to every single living being on this planet.

The world is calling for global leadership on a scale never seen before, at the very time when nations are sadly turning inwardly and political factions are more concerned with domestic rivalry and individual gains.

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