Health agency reviews suspension of herbicide paraquat
The highly toxic herbicide paraquat, forbidden in several countries and banned in the European Union since 2007, may finally be suspended in Brazil. If ingested, the weed killer can cause lesions in the lungs and liver and ultimately lead to death. The herbicide is also associated with cancer and Parkinson disease.
But on the eve of the herbicide's scheduled ban, supposed to happen on September 22, the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa), which imposed its prohibition in 2017, may backtrack. At a meeting Tuesday, the agency will discuss a postponement of the deadline proposed by farmers and manufacturers who want more time to present studies on the safety of paraquat.
The sixth best-selling pesticide in Brazil in 2018, paraquat generated revenues of R$172 million to 11 manufacturers during the 2019/20 crop, according to Spark, a consultancy. The main player in the country is Switzerland's Syngenta, controlled by ChemChina. The estimate area treated with the herbicide in the period was 25.6 million hectares, 97% cultivated with soybeans.
In April, Anvisa attempted to review paraquat's suspension date, but was blocked by the public prosecutor in Dourados, Mato Grosso do sul, amid the pandemic. But in July the agency got legal permission to bring the discussion back to the table. The agency confirmed the discussions, but didn't want to make further statement.
Sales so far, even with the possible suspension, are in full swing. According to the agricultural defense institutes of Rio Grande do Sul (SEAPDR) and Paraná (Adapar), both important soybean-growing states, 6.14 million and 8.4 million liters of commercial products containing paraquat were sold last year, respectively. This represents increases of 46.7% and 91% compared to 2018.
In the state of Mato Grosso, 2.1 million tonnes of the active ingredient were sold in 2019, year in which Indea started collecting data on pesticides. As a rule, the paraquat active ingredient is in 20% of the composition of commercial products.
"It is an aberration that there was no scheduled withdrawal of paraquat from the market. Since 2017, the use of the product should have fallen, which would give way to substitute technologies", says Luiz Cláudio Meirelles, a researcher at the Center for the Study of Occupational Health and Human Ecology at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) and former general manager of Toxicology at Anvisa.
Used in Brazil since the 1970s, paraquat can be applied in several...
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