Pesticides : Quand le PROFIT passe avant la SANTÉ PUBLIQUE – Documentaire Monde – AT

Pesticides : Quand le PROFIT passe avant la SANTÉ PUBLIQUE – Documentaire Monde – AT

The state of Mato Grosso, the Brazilian Far West, is the champion of all categories of agribusiness. Cotton,
rice, sugarcane, corn, the country’s leading producer of transgenic soybeans
, and the absolute record holder for pesticide consumption. Matogrosso is nothing more than the top
of the class of a country that is the world champion in agrotoxins, as those
who denounce this chemical empire call them. When you see this river, at first
glance, it makes you want to swim in it. But I, who do analyses,
would not set foot there. Even though I dream of swimming. Chemical contamination is
not visible, it is not seen. It looks like the river is well
preserved and clean, but when doing a chemical analysis
in the laboratory, residues are detected. One of the characteristics
of some pesticides is that they are extremely persistent
in the environment, particularly in water. So it is an important environmental indicator
that we also need to monitor. With 3,669 authorized pesticides, Brazil is a veritable Eldorado for multinationals,
mainly European. And among them,
they shamelessly sell products banned on the old continent. They make billions
selling extremely dangerous pesticides, most of which are
banned in our country. 20 percent of the poisoned population
in Brazil are young children aged 0 to 19. There are even babies. We are facing
a form of infanticide. Wait, there’s
something wrong here. We are not going to create a
European fortress by protecting European citizens to improve their health
and destroy the health of Brazilians, etc. There is also a problem
of ethics and professional conduct. And so, we import products that were
manufactured with these pesticides, which I am happy about, and we end up with
residues of these pesticides that are banned in Europe,
but which we find on our plates in France, Germany
and other European countries. It’s good. There is a very good reason
and it’s called money. In October 2018,
Jair Bolsonaro was elected President of the Federative Republic of Brazil. With this former paratrooper at the helm
of the country, the food industry is guaranteed a
free hand. Barely elected,
he pledged allegiance to the agribusiness boss, who
gathered to celebrate his victory. And I say to you: I
am the employer of you. You are our boss. You are our boss. We owe absolute reality. For you, we fight. To encourage the expansion of
cultivable areas, deforestation of the Amazon is resuming its mad rush. In 2019, more than 900,000 hectares
of forests went up in smoke. More than Corsica, the equivalent
of Bavaria and SE, combined. While Europe is in turmoil,
in the corridors of power in Brasilia, another tragedy is unfolding. Today
we are witnessing a record approval of new products in Brazil. Bolsonaro’s government has already
authorized more pesticides than ever before in our entire history. The quantity has already doubled. In some cases, there is even a threat
to reauthorize pesticides that had been banned in Brazil. We are experiencing a huge step backward
today. A
kingdom in reason, but above all a formidable market
for multinationals, including three European giants. The Swiss, Saint-Janta,
and the Germans BASF and Bayer, which acquired Monsanto in 2018. Far from smoking factories,
their communication portrays a world where happiness is in the meadow,
bathed in clean air and healthy products. A kind of ideal planet that outlines
the future of sustainable agriculture. At L3, these multinationals achieved
more than 150 billion euros in turnover in 2019. They would like it
not to be too widely known. But a Swiss NGO based in Lausanne does
not see it that way. For 50 years, Public Eye has been investigating
the excesses of Swiss multinationals in emerging countries. The association has just published
a map of the global business of Saint-Janta and its
competitors Bayer and BASF. The pesticide market
is an extremely lucrative market, worth tens of billions each
year, but it is extremely secretive. There is very little data, very few
figures on pesticide sales. Companies were always able
to hide behind the famous trade secret, because this data
is not published, it is confidential. And it was indeed the first time
that we were able to produce a complete map of these exports. And the numbers are dizzying. In 2018, the European Union exported more
than 80,000 tonnes of pesticides, even though they are banned on its soil. And 90 percent of these products come from
factories located on the Old Continent: the United Kingdom,
Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium and Spain. A third of
sales in 2018 were pesticides considered extremely dangerous,
carcinogenic, bee-killing and endocrine disruptors. In total, we are talking about more than 40
different pesticides: substances, dangerous molecules,
banned in our fields, which were approved for export that year,
for a total volume of more than 80,000 tonnes. These are not small volumes, these are not
small quantities, these are massive. Hypocrisy?
Cynicism? In any case, a double
standard strategy that is flourishing wonderfully in the Brazilian market. Return to Mato Grosso, through a lifeless landscape. Soybean and cotton fields,
as far as the eye can see, have replaced the cerrado, the original forest. No animals in these fields animated
by a single ballet, that of pesticide sprayers. On land or from the air,
spraying by aircraft is permitted here. In Europe, they have been
banned for a long time. Its pessoa emerged 30
years ago thanks to the boom in soy, corn and cotton crops. The city vibrates to the incessant rhythm
of trucks loaded with agricultural produce. Brazil’s largest agrochemical companies
have established huge warehouses there. It is also the city that uses the most
pesticides in all of Matos Grosso. It is sometimes called the capital
of depression because of its abnormally high suicide rate. Professor Marcia Montanari has an
appointment at the college named after André Antonio Magi,
one of Brazil’s soy fanatics. He was the one who financed
the construction of the school. The staff knows Marcia well. She has been analyzing tap water
for six years now. Water that more than 1,000
schoolchildren drink every day. Brazilian legislation
already allows 27 pesticides in water. But Marcia Montanari
has uncovered others. In addition to the 27 pesticide residues
that the legislation allows for drinking water, we evaluate the
most used pesticides in Matogrosso. Of
all the artesian wells we monitored in Sapesal schools,
50 percent had pesticide residues. And the main pesticides we
found were metaulachlor and atrazine. And even in the other rain,
we found some. Atrazine, a herbicide
banned in Europe since 2003. Metaulachlor, banned
in France the same year. The results obtained by
Marcia’s study were impressive. At school, we professionals
were very shaken by the results. However, this has not called into question
our attitude towards agribusiness. Even to protect the school, the
school’s water? No. Did
n’t it change anything? No. Not that I know of. Because I think that will only happen
if we stop applying pesticides. But since it is a very
agricultural region, the population lives off it. The economic stakes are very
high due to agribusiness. So, the challenge did not take place. We realize that there is a great
dependence of local elected officials on agribusiness. This is a very sensitive subject
for the community and the municipality. In Sapézal, we sought to meet
the producers who drive the town’s economy
and use these pesticides. We have sent requests to
the multinationals whose warehouses crisscross the city. All of them refused our
interview requests. We’re trying our luck
with Scariott, a family business founded in 2008. One of the managers, Claudio Scariott,
is also the city’s deputy mayor. At first suspicious, he finally agreed
to show us around the company, which he said was committed to ecology
and respectful of regulations. A big part of our approach
is to preserve the environment. In our rivers here,
the water is so clear that you can see 10 meters down. For what ? Because you can’t grow crops
near rivers. There are so-called
permanent protection zones. We, as producers,
must be aware that no pesticides should ever be spread
along rivers. That’s why they are clean,
they are clean. They are clean, they are clean.
They are clean. They are clean.
They are clean. They are clean.
They are clean. Let’s go see the silos. Here, we alternate the production
of corn and soybeans. Come here, you can
film, it’s corn. In the silos, the last
hundredweights are waiting to be sold. For this production,
Claudio Scariot uses all the chemical products offered by the industry. Do you use trazine for corn? What then?
Atrazine. Atrazine?
Yes. After soybeans, before planting corn,
the land must be cleaned. Is it absolutely necessary? It is necessary. Atrazine was used
much more in the past. Today, we use less of it.
For what ? Glyphosate is mixed
with trazine. Today we use half
of what we used before and it has the same effect. But I think we’re going to have problems
next year, because there won’t be any more, they’re out of stock. To replace glyphosate,
the agro-industrialist is considering using an equivalent herbicide, paraquat. But this product is far from ideal. So far we have
hardly used anything. Starting next year,
if we run out of glyphosate, we can use it instead. But paraquat is very
volatile in applications. If you use it and the
weather or wind conditions are not good, you risk killing a neighbor’s crop. But paraquoit has just been banned. Is this a problem for you? Everything is evolving. Just yesterday I was talking about this
paraquoie problem and now I don’t really understand what will change. If it gets banned when we
run out of glyphosate, what will we use? Imports doubled,
probably because the market understood that this ban
would be inevitable. So, Brazil now
has a huge stockpile and the difficulty is to prohibit the sale of these stocks. Otherwise, what do we do with these substances? For now, we continue
to use them without question. And in the kingdom of soy and pesticides,
we make arrangements, including with regulations. On the side of the road, a sprayer is
spreading chemicals. He is breaking the law because he does not respect
legal safety distances. Look, the sprayer is
less than 50 meters from the road. It’s very close to the highway. And besides,
we are not allowed to plant soybeans so close to the highway,
let alone spray them. This is a very
dangerous situation from a health point of view. We continue on our way. Suddenly, a plane flies low
and drops a yellow product over the soybean field. Here too he is breaking the law
on aerial spraying. He didn’t close the floodgates. To protect ourselves from the
pesticide spray, we keep the windows closed and film from
inside the car. By law, a spraying aircraft must
close its valves as soon as it flies over a road or any inhabited area. He crossed straight ahead and didn’t
bother to check the road and its passers-by. And we saw that a motorcyclist passed by
almost immediately after the spraying. And that’s how the health
of the people who work on these farms, and ultimately the people
who travel these roads, is compromised. We
realize that there is a lack of respect and even contempt
for Brazilian legislation. And it continues because there is no
control to punish or put an end to these infractions. In Sapézal, our questions about pesticides seem to have displeased Claudio Scariot. I regret filming with you
this morning, even the little we did. But why? What can we
do to fix this? I gave you some information
just on how the company works, but as for agronomy,
technology, I can’t talk about it like that. We had one last
question for you. You told us about water. Do you know of any studies that have been
done on water quality here? Just look. It can be seen with the naked eye. She is clean. Go to the Juruena River, you will see,
if you film, it is perfectly clean. There is no pollution. There is nothing. So, taking water to analyze it
is useless because it is clean. And you drink tap water? Of course you can drink
tap water. It is drinkable. According to Claudio, agriculture would
therefore have no impact on the quality of the water in Sapézal. A statement dismantled
by Marcia Montanari’s analyses. In Sapézal, the researcher
detected 40 different pesticides. They are present in 56 percent
of rainwater samples and 83 percent of
tap water samples. This water contamination does
not only affect the countryside. São Paulo is also affected. The megacity has 27 million
inhabitants, more than a tenth of Brazil’s population. Anna Aranja is an
investigative journalist specializing in agribusiness issues. Laurent Gabriel, from Public Eye,
asked him to conduct an investigation into urban water in Brazil. It started with a phone call. Laurent explained to me that he was doing
a survey on pesticides. He asked me: Do you drink
tap water? And I was a little surprised by this
question because: Why shouldn’t I drink water? He told me he thought there
were pesticides in it. I was pregnant and it scared me. So I stopped drinking
filtered water and bought bottled water. And I immediately said to him:
OK, we’ll join forces. I am beginning research
to assess the extent of the problem. Using public data,
Ana Arania has created a map of water contamination in
Brazil’s largest cities, starting with the state of São Paulo and its capital. So in São Paulo, my city,
the first thing that caught my attention was the issue of atrazine. In fact, there is some in the city water. And the data, between 2014 and 2017,
shows that all 27 pesticides tested were present
in São Paulo’s water. All of them were detected.
All right. And among these 27 pesticides,
19 are banned in Europe. Thus,
the water that Brazilians drink would not be considered potable
on the old continent. In 2018, Ana Arania published her investigation. According to her, in half of
Brazil’s cities, the water that city dwellers drink is contaminated. Conclusions taken up
by all national media. But the repercussions are
not up to the challenge. From a personal point of view,
this alarmed me. But once again,
it gave me that feeling that I have had as a journalist in Brazil,
since I started working, and which is very confusing. We are revealing a very serious reality to people,
but it is struggling to enter the public debate. However, this investigation had
much more repercussions. We have had over half a million
visits to our website. Several media outlets have picked it up,
more than 400 in total. They contacted us and did
regional articles on what the reality was in their city. It was excellent, except that after that,
the discussion died. It stopped there. The most frequently
used substances are paraquat and atrazine, two active substances produced
mainly by Saint-Janta, and of which Matogrosso is
a huge consumer. These two molecules, created in the
1960s in Switzerland, conquered the planet at the end of the 20th century,
despite their sulphurous reputation. Still authorized in Brazil,
atrazine has been banned in the European Union since 2003. Trazine is once again a fine
example of this European hypocrisy, because in the early 2000s,
it was banned in Europe because it was found to
pollute groundwater. And so, drinking water,
even now, almost 15, 20 years later,
it is one of the most detected pesticides in drinking water in Europe. It is an endocrine disruptor,
meaning it is a pesticide that, even at very low doses,
can disrupt your hormonal system and affect the reproductive system. All of these banned pesticides,
which are the subject of our investigation, are substances that were
used in Europe, but withdrawn from the market
because the European authorities concluded that the dangers and risks posed
by these substances were too high. Toxic to health
and the environment, Trasine evokes memories of a
disaster that occurred in Basel in 1986. A fire broke out in a
Sandoz warehouse, where agrochemical products were stored. For more than two hours,
flames shot up into the Basel sky, more than 50 meters high. To prevent an even more
monstrous explosion, thousands of liters of pesticides were dumped in a rush
into the Rhine, including 400 kilos of atrazine. The river is considered to be
irreversibly polluted. This Chernobyl arouses desolation
and immense anger. Why do you keep defending yourself? Why don’t you apologize? Once and for all. Under public pressure, Sandoz,
which would become Novartis, then Saint-Jean-de-Luz, had to relocate
its production to the United States. This will not prevent him from selling
atrazine in Europe for another 16 years. As with atrazine,
the use of paracouat is also banned in the
European Union, but not its production. Made in England,
in 2018 it represented a third of the volumes of pesticides banned in Europe,
but exported to the rest of the world. Paraquat
is an extremely toxic herbicide that was developed in the 1960s,
just to let you know. That is to say,
this pesticide has been on the market for almost 60 years. It is a herbicide that is so toxic
that if you swallow just one teaspoon, it is guaranteed death. It is a herbicide that is responsible for
thousands of poisonings each year in developing countries,
farmers who apply this herbicide without any protection
and who inhale the product or are exposed through the skin. And yet, the parachutist is
still allowed in some countries. To understand this aberration, we
must look at the procedures for evaluating and
marketing these products. All over the world,
they are entrusted to public agencies, such as EFSA,
the European Food Safety Agency. In Europe, we still have
regulatory agencies that are relatively well- equipped with experts and resources
to at least review these files. And we can imagine what this means
in countries that do not have the means to carry out their own
risk assessment. And in general,
in developing countries, we have on average about three
people, between zero and three people, because in some countries, we don’t have. Between zero and three people
who are responsible for assessing the risks posed by pesticides and approving or not
the use of certain substances in their country. In the European Union or the United States,
we are talking about between 100 and 300 people doing this work. And even when you have 100 or 300 people,
you have serious questions because the data is
provided by the industry. Pesticide manufacturers are,
in a way, deemed to have left. They are, in fact, the ones
who carry out and provide the evaluation agencies with studies on the
possible danger of their pesticides. There is nothing worrying about this
for Géraldine Cutas, head of the European Union
of Agrochemical Manufacturers. Of course, the data is provided
by the industries because it is a regulatory request. We must present these
scientific studies to the evaluation agencies. And we’re talking about thousands
of pages per file. So of course,
we provide this data. Now, I do not believe that there is
a deficit in analytical capacity on the part of the evaluation authorities. This is really one of their
arguments to defend their profession. That is to say, they say:
Pesticides are one of the most regulated sectors in the world. There is no problem. Move along, nothing to see here. And that’s where there’s a big lie
behind it, which is that in fact, this whole system of assessing
the risk of pesticides is based on studies
carried out by the industry itself on its own products
and which are confidential. That is to say that you, me,
an academic, a researcher cannot go and check whether what is
presented to the regulator holds up. And each time
these studies have been made public, in one way or another,
following a court decision, or following ongoing investigations
by regulators or American courts, in particular,
each time, irregularities and fraud have been found. This is what a whistleblower, a
toxicologist, who worked for a long time for a laboratory
bought by Saint-Jean-ta, revealed. He showed how public agencies
were deceived for over 60 years. John Eilings has proven that the company ICI, which
became Zeneca and then Saint-Jean-ta, had falsified data on its
flagship herbicide, paraquat. Eilings was recruited in 1986. His mission: to make paraquat less
dangerous by preventing deaths from ingestion. Paraquat
is probably the deadliest pesticide ever made. Paraquat is absorbed very
quickly from the intestine. In less than an hour,
it passes into your bloodstream. So we thought: If we can make it so
that the paracot doesn’t stay in the stomach, that would be a good solution. I knew there was an
emetic agent in the formulation. So I thought: There
‘s already an emetic in there. So why doesn’t it allow
the stomach to reject the product when it is ingested? Is there something wrong with
the dose of the vomit-tif, its concentration? John Eilings then goes back
to the first studies in 1977. They indicate that even at high doses, the
emetic only works after two hours. Too late, because it only takes an hour
to die from ingesting a parachutist. But in the official report,
Saint-Jean-ta appears to have falsified the data. Some of the vomiting data
from the clinical trial on patients had been replaced. And most importantly, it completely
ignored the fact that the recommended dose level did not work
in humans. So I was quite surprised. But when John Eilings alerted
his superiors, they told me that it would be very, very damaging to the reputation,
not only of the Central Toxicology Laboratory, but also
of the company as a whole. And since I had discovered a new
formulation with a higher dose of emetic , we might be
able to solve the problem. Nine years later, it’s disillusionment. Although John Eilings may have found
a more effective formula, the company ignores it. In 1995, as required by law,
paraquoit had to undergo a new evaluation by the
European Union and the toxicologist then checked the file completed by the manufacturer. And when I looked at it,
I thought, Wait a minute, this is still the
fabricated data and it’s incorrect. The document was based on the same
report, written in 1977, which was false. So I gave a detailed response,
probably two or three pages long, to the agrochemical division saying:
You can’t use that. Do n’t you know there’s a problem? Nothing. I received no response,
almost as if nothing had happened. In Europe, in 1995,
they used this false data to re-register paraquoit,
and this kept it on the market for ten years,
with hundreds of people poisoned across Europe,
before it was banned. And why do you think
they didn’t increase the dose of vomit? There’s a very good reason,
and it’s called money. The
cost was so prohibitive that they told us it could
destroy the profits of the paraquoit for the group. It was not until 2007 that the
European Union banned Paracouat. Brazil has only just banned it,
but it is still sold in the United States, India and South Africa. A professor of clinical toxicology
at the University of Edinburgh estimates that it caused nearly 10,000 deaths. The European agency responsible for evaluating
pesticides, EFSA, declined to be interviewed. As for Syngenta,
we had to make do with corporate films gleaned from the Internet. We realize that we, Syngenta, have to listen to farmers and it is therefore understood that the multinationals,
the National Union, work for the good of humanity and therefore also
for the health of Brazilians. Journalists and researchers may
demonstrate the opposite, but it is difficult for them to make themselves heard. Facing them
is the power of persuasion and the means of a huge lobby that knows how to strike
a chord. The agribusiness thus offers the services of
the most famous Brazilian, Pelé. I spend the best part
of my life in the country. Today, my greatest joy is
to see my country in another country. The agricultural camp. The Agrobrasil team is
doing a good job of making food there and here too. Good, healthy, churning food. The Agrobrasil team is the champion of production and preservation. It is a very strong discourse and present
in all the media that says that agribusiness is good for Brazil. And in reality, it’s the opposite. This model of agriculture has not brought any
social development to Brazil. Why do I say that? Because we have lost more than a
million rural workers in the last ten years. We have lost the few
food security gains we had made. This serves a class
that controls private property. 1% of the owners of this land
control 50% of the agricultural land. So, this industrialized agriculture
serves the interests of transnationals, the chemical sector and that small
class that controls private property in Brazil. Larissa Bombardy has created an atlas
of agriculture and pesticides in Brazil using public data
that unequivocally establishes the overlapping interests of
European chemists and large Brazilian agricultural landowners. The former sell them
half a billion worth of toxic products per year. The latter export 2.5 billion euros worth of
soybeans and fruit juice to the European Union. For Larissa Bombardy,
the goal of these exchanges is no longer to feed humanity, but to sell
as many pesticides as possible. There is an inversion. Talking about agriculture today
is no longer about food production; it has become something else. It is a production of
raw material securities. These are things foreign
to the food itself. It is not agriculture that depends
on the chemical industry, it is the chemical industry that depends
on agriculture to be profitable, to make money. Jaire Bolsonaro encouraged this phenomenon. Barely elected in 2019,
the new president went to Parliament and appointed an agribusiness champion as Minister
of Agriculture . The former leader of the deputies
who came from it, Thérésa Cristina. The first os parabenizum was indicated
to Senhora Teresa Cristina. Thank you for giving
the floor to Thérèse Cristina para ser a nosa ministra. Una persona excepcional
que tem demostrado garras and the competence to seek solutions
for power. In
Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies, Alexandre Padilla, a former doctor,
is now a member of the opposition. He was Minister of Health under
President Dilma Rousseff. So, just to understand
who Teresa Christine is. She wanted to change the name by
legislative means so that it no longer says agrotoxic, but defensive products. In fact, pesticides
can be called defensives. We also say pesticides,
this is the name used throughout the world. But these are remedies. Yes, words are very important. They have a lot of strength. The word agrotoxic is
a word used in Brazil. It was created here. It has a lot of power because it
shows that the substance is toxic. But when
you say pesticides or defensive, you And that’s the impact of that word. In April 2019, Teresa Cristina appeared before the deputies. An opportunity for Alexandre Padilla
to challenge the new Minister of Agriculture. Madam Minister, why
am I worried? In four cities in the state of
Mato Grosso, the water that children drink at school has been
found to contain an absolutely unjustifiable amount of pesticides,
including atrazine, which is clearly carcinogenic. Do the Minister or the Ministry of
Agriculture dispute these studies? Yes, I dispute them. The Ministry of Agriculture disputes these
studies carried out in Matogrosso, because the levels detected are below those of
agricultural pesticides. The minister shamelessly prefers to
blame small farmers. This is the big problem of poisoning farmers, especially small farmers, who have not received training in how to
use these products, applying them with
appropriate clothing and equipment, washing their equipment well
and avoiding smoking. Sometimes,
sometimes these people smoke while applying the products and with
the cigarette, they end up ingesting the chemical they
are spreading. Her defense of pesticides
earned her a nickname: the muse of poison. For months we have been requesting his interview in vain. If Thérésa Cristina is authorizing
pesticides left, right and centre, it is because she has the support
of 200 MPs from the agricultural world. They were the ones who suggested that En Arrot
appoint their former boss. We will try to meet them
at the IPA, the Pensard Agro Institute, a think tank funded
by pesticide manufacturers. Every Tuesday,
MPs from the Parliamentary Agricultural Fund and lobbyists meet there to discuss
future laws and give interviews to journalists. For two months, we asked
to meet their leader. Until the last moment,
the communications officers kept us waiting,
while the deputies paraded in front of the cameras of journalists
accredited by the IPA. Why do others do interviews
with all the MPs and not us? But they are partners of the
Parliamentary Agricultural Front, you understand? The reason they’re doing an
interview is because there’s a partnership. The Ruralist Parliamentary Group
is, without a doubt, the largest right-wing party in economic power
in Brazil today. These are families who,
for generations, decade after decade,
have dominated political power in the countryside and who seek
to influence the country’s agenda in Congress. From the approval of pesticides
to the withdrawal of environmental regulations. They interact with other
groups to gain popularity. They are closely aligned with the conservative agenda of
anti-abortion conservatives,
misogynists, homophobes. They are also very associated with the
gun liberation program. They are nicknamed the 3 B bench,
for Beef, Ball and Bible. After two hours of waiting,
our hopes were definitely dashed. So, we still have to wait
a little longer for the interview? The information we’re going to give
is that he won’t talk to you. Officially, there
is no interview. There is no explanation for this refusal,
but it must be said that at the IPA, as at the highest level of the State,
the large landowners do not feel the need to justify themselves,
including to the Supreme Court. One of these judges, Gilmar Mendes,
is at the center of an environmental scandal. Mendes is not just a magistrate. He is also a large landowner,
including a 611 hectare farm. Rancho Alegre, in Mato Grosso. He grows soybeans,
but in defiance of the law. He is spraying pesticides near
the sources of the Paraguay River, which are drying up. This area is, however,
officially protected. In Diamantino, at the regional Ministry
of Justice, a young prosecutor sought to enforce the law. It was a bad decision for him. I learned that the inspector
of the institution, who was in charge of verifying my conduct
as a prosecutor, that the judge had called him
from his office in Brasilia and that he had insulted me,
calling me a madman in a cage. He told him that action had to be
taken. The young prosecutor is organizing a
public hearing to join farmers in reducing pesticides
in this protected area. Only Judge Mendes refuses
to respect the law. This crime of lèse majesté earned prosecutor
Zapia a disciplinary investigation. According to the investigation,
I allegedly abused my powers. I would have an animosity against the judge. And because of that, I would have persecuted him. I took 19 measurements. None of the other owners reported
any irregularities that could give rise to disciplinary action. Only the judge did it. So I consider this punishment
an injustice because it punishes me precisely for having carried out my duty,
for having done what I am paid to do. It is not good to pick
a fight with the powerful. After a 45-day salary suspension
, Daniel Zappia prefers to request a transfer to another jurisdiction. Judge Mendes, for his part,
continues to use agrotoxins near the sources of the Paraguay River. And as a Supreme Court justice,
his voice carries weight in pesticide legislation. He did not respond
to our request for an interview. After months of investigation and
rejection, we secured an appointment with
one of Brazil’s largest landowners,
in the northeast of the country, on the border between the states of Ceara
and Rio Grande do Norte. Melon fields as far as the eye can see. 30,000 hectares, the equivalent of a
plot of land measuring 17 kilometers by 17. Agricola Famosa is the largest
producer of melons and watermelons in Brazil, and one of the
world’s leading exporters. 9,000 workers work there. A small empire led by Luis Roberto. Come on, I’ll take you to the office. Luis Roberto plays the transparency card
and organizes a complete tour of the farm. First stop: the factory,
where every day in season, a million melons arrive directly from
the fields to be prepared and packed. The melons arrive here
and pass through this bath. Is it chlorine?
Yes yes. Why do it? To kill bacteria,
it is a bactericide. 65 percent of production is
exported. The majority of customers are European. Now these crates are ready
and depending on the brand variety, they are sent to different
customers in different countries. So if it’s Germany,
it goes to Lidl or Aldi. In Britain,
it’s Tesco or Mark L’Espenser. In France, it goes
to Carrefour and so on. We also deliver to the field. In short, we supply
all European supermarkets directly. It is mainly because these clients are
European that he agreed to meet us. Workers apply
limazalil, a controversial substance, to melon stems. Banned in France, it is
tolerated for imported products. Staff wear masks and gloves. They apply a product called Imazalil. It is permitted in Europe
up to 0.2 milligrams per kilo. It is used on the
most exposed part of the fruit. Since the melon is cut at this point, it
is most vulnerable to fungal attack. Alex Carlos is the
quality manager of agricola Famosa. He shows us the tests carried out
by a private European laboratory on fruit samples
before their departure to the European Union. Here is an example of our controls
to ensure that all the products we deliver, that we sell,
are free from any contamination and any deviation
from regulations, both in Brazil and in Europe. In Brazil as in Europe. In the analyses,
we reported to Luis Roberto the presence of imidacloprid, a pesticide
banned in the European Union. Look, this is the
imidacloprid molecule. Alex, the Dimida molecule… Alex. The molecule Dimida… Cloprid. Banned since 2020 in
Is it banned in Europe? That’s it.
This is the European text. It’s not approved. Not approved.
Over there in Europe. And why is it not approved?
Can you show us? What is the reason?
Tell us, Alex. If you search the laws
here you should find why. It
must be for environmental reasons. If
it had to do with human health, we would
not be allowed to buy this product. Alex Carlos finally found the
European text that justifies the ban on imidacloprid. The risk to pollinators
other than honeybees. Yes, these are the studies they used
as a basis for taking this… In Brazil, however,
this product is authorized. Alex Carlos now shows us
the Brazilian law text. Product provado,
Imidacloprid, chemical group of neonicotinoids,
insecticide class of the company Bayer and toxicological
and environmental class, four. According to this logic, Imidacloprid would be
toxic for European countries, but harmless for its
Brazilian cousin. So, no problem for Luis Roberto. He can legally export his
melons. Europe is using an
increasingly widespread principle, the precautionary principle. So what is this principle? Well, as a precaution, we
should stop everything. We will ban air flights
because planes are at risk of crashing. So when there is a study that says:
Neonicotinoids could be harmful to bees, a
European producer can no longer use them. But if a Brazilian wants to use this
product and harm these bees, well, that’s his problem. But we will discover other
pesticides that are even more harmful. Where are the pesticides here?
Can you open the door for me? Are you the one in charge here? They want to film stocks
to explain how everything works. Products are classified
according to their danger. So when it’s blue like that,
it means it’s not very toxic. Who is it? Here, it’s not
toxic, it’s just green. Products stamped green
and blue are non-toxic. Among these products is Cronos,
based on mancozeb, which has been banned in the European Union since 2021. Bravonil, manufactured by Saint-Jean-ta,
a fungicide containing chlorotalonil, was
banned in Europe in May 2020. The pirate, produced by BASF, in short,
based on chlorphenapyr, an insecticide banned since 2009. If the product were bad for your health, would
you still use it? I don’t know if there is any
scientific study that proves it is bad for your health. And if it was,
we wouldn’t use it. And even if it is allowed in Brazil? Even if it is allowed in Brazil? This question doesn’t make much sense
because I’m not the one doing the studies to determine
whether it’s toxic or not. Do you understand?
It’s not me who does it. These are government agencies
and we believe they are serious. Luis Roberto acknowledges that the situation
is ambiguous, but he relies on the law and the
current texts give him the green light to export his production. At the risk of contributing
to an unfortunate boomerang effect. According to research
by Larissa Bombardy, based on documents provided
by the European Commission, 62 percent of products arriving
in Europe contain pesticide residues. And about 8 percent of these
even exceed the levels permitted in the European Union. What’s happening, in fact,
is what I call a circle of poisoning. Agrotoxins are banned
in the European Union, but are sold to countries like Brazil. They are used here,
then potentially end up in coffee, orange juice
and tropical fruits. They return to Europe. This is clearly a legitimate cause
for concern for European civil society. In
Germany, the Greenpeace association has investigated
shipments of fruit imported from Brazil. Melon, papaya, figs and lime. In total, 70 fruits were tested
in the laboratory and 35 pesticides were detected. What surprised us
was that we were able to detect pesticide residues almost everywhere,
in almost every sample. And 11 of these 35 active substances
are not authorized in Europe. We find that alarming. For example, we found
chlorothalonil, which is a fungicide marketed
in Brazil by the two manufacturers Bayer and BASF. It is considered very dangerous. It ends up in
groundwater. It is considered carcinogenic and
has a negative effect on animals. And that’s why this substance is
no longer authorized in the European Union. Amazing European contortion. Pesticides banned in the EU
can be imported provided that residue limits are not exceeded. For manufacturers of
plant protection products, these residue limits are an effective safeguard. I understand the concerns
of European consumers regarding this issue. Now, what you need to know
is that there is legislation in Europe, as in all countries around the world,
with maximum residue levels that are authorized in
imported products. And this is precisely what guarantees
that the residues of finished products of sanitary rates contained in imports
have a limit and are not toxic for consumers
and consumer health. Therefore, there is no risk
for the European consumer in consuming products that are imported
from any country in the world, because the legislation
guarantees that the residues of these products are not toxic
for consumers. The story is quite different. Among some European deputies
for whom the very notion of residue limits causes consternation. What are they doing? They have now invented
residue limits. These residue limits are permitted. You see, it’s
0.02 micrograms per kilo. But why is there a threshold like that? Since it’s normally forbidden,
it should be zero. On the one hand, Europe
is the third to say: We have the best legislation in the world. All highly toxic products
are banned in Europe. But by exporting these products
to third-party products that return in the form of food,
they are also contaminating European citizens. So, we made a poison circle. Especially since in its study on
imported fruit, Greenpeace noted that certain
samples exceeded its residue limits. Exceeding the maximum rate
therefore means, from a legal point of view, that we do
not have the right to sell the product. This does not mean that the product is
dangerous, but that it should not be put into circulation or on the market. This is why we
wrote to the traders concerned. And we also sent a letter
to the food control authorities and
said: We found this and this. Please make sure
this doesn’t happen again. Of the ten distributors whose food was
analyzed, only two contacted Greenpeace. As for the regulatory authorities, they did
not even bother to respond. They don’t necessarily want
to acknowledge that borders are real sieves for pesticides. Products in transit are rarely
checked, whether in Brazil when the ships leave the port
or in the European Union when they arrive at the port. French customs never
responded to our request to film. The control is extremely weak. The only point of control
is at the level of legislation on pesticide residues in food. And that
‘s already extremely low because we know that there are a lot of pesticides that are
used, but that we won’t necessarily detect as residues. And then there is only a part of
the imported goods that are controlled, a whole series of imports
that escape all control. And then we rely on self-control
on the part of the importers. For the NGOs at the forefront of this fight,
the legislation neglects one essential point. What they called the cocktail effect,
produced by the combination of several pesticides in the same fruit or vegetable. This mix of pesticides is worrying. Because the evaluations are
always done on an isolated pesticide. But when, like us, we find five
different pesticides in a single sample, what does that mean? And there, the big question
is their effect. Do they add up? Are
they multiplying? Do they cancel each other out? When you have all these
chemical substances, some of which are also endocrine disruptors,
it creates a cocktail effect that is very difficult to measure,
if not impossible, because the number of combinations is
infinite and which will have an impact on health. So, when we identify a risk,
what should we do about it? We have to minimize it, reduce it. Start by removing and
banning substances that are potentially dangerous to health. Despite these warnings,
Europe continues to authorize the export of pesticides
deemed toxic on its soil to Africa, the Americas and Asia. A situation which allows manufacturers
to shirk their responsibilities. Three-quarters of these products are
exported to markets with very strict regulations:
the United States, Japan, Australia, even Brazil. These are different regulatory systems
from the European Union, but they are still very strict. There is no good or bad system. They just have
different approaches. These regulations, which are sufficient
according to the chemical industry, nevertheless have serious shortcomings. Back in the Sahara,
in the northeast of Brazil. The fruit industry was established
in the Limoeiro region of Norte in the early 2000s. Banana fields
quickly surrounded the villages. Like that of Thômey
and its 2,500 inhabitants. But forced economic development is
costing the population dearly, who helplessly endure
aerial pesticide spraying. In
2008, a village resident, Zemaria, decided to fight against
these criminal sprayings. He quickly became a media icon.
Policy. It is a very tough fight in which we
are doubly victims. The agribusiness here
in the region wants nothing to do with it. She just wants to make
a profit and run with it. The
planes were not allowed to spray within 200 meters of the
village, but they flew right over it. And people thought it was beautiful when
the plane flew by, the gasoline trailed white behind it. People come from their homes to see this. I myself had 150 chickens in my
garden and in one day, 80 chickens died. When the plane finished passing,
the chickens started walking crookedly and then they died. Then Zemaria said: In 10 years,
I may not be alive anymore. But you will see,
people have fallen ill with cancer, children will be born with a malformation. You will see the number of
terrible diseases that will occur, because we are powerless
against agrotoxins. Zemaria was
unfortunately not mistaken. His fight cost him his life. He was shot dead on the side of a road. The killer was arrested,
but the alleged mastermind of the murder, a large
landowner, was acquitted. And in accordance with Zemaria’s fears,
serious illnesses appeared. Nearly 40 percent more cancer. This is the terrifying conclusion of a
scientific study conducted in the region. Adapontès, and a researcher at the University
of Séara, she has, in her own way, taken up the torch of Zemaria’s struggle. After the murder of community leader
Zemaria D’Otomé in 2010, people were very afraid to confide in me. It took a lot of patience
and intense dialogue with the community’s residents. An intense dialogue with the moradores
and moradoras of the community. Lucia is the mother of a little
girl suffering from precocious puberty. Here she is at her last
appointment with the pediatrician. Oh, how tall she is. It was last month. What beautiful hair! She is almost She is almost
as tall as the doctor. How beautiful she is. She is beautiful. Yes, she grew up. I miss her. Tell her I miss her a lot. Her daughter was still only an 18-
month-old baby when the first signs of puberty appeared. When my daughter was one and a half years old,
I began to notice abnormalities in her. I found her different
from children of that age. His chest felt hard. We did several tests and
discovered that she did indeed have formed breasts and early hormonal activity. At eight years old, she already has
all her hair. It is already well developed. There was no way to cure her. In Thomé, other mothers report
even more serious anomalies to Ada Pontes. Good morning. Good morning.
How are you ? I’m doing well.
What is this little boy’s name? He Juan. How handsome he is, how tall he is.
He is five months old. Juan’s mother had already given birth. A little girl named Sofia,
born with a serious deformity. All mothers can see
their baby after birth. But I couldn’t see her. The doctor was very good,
but it was cruel. I immediately read
the truth on his face. He told me: Sofia was born, but she won’t live more than three days,
because she was born with two holes in her heart and she couldn’t resist.
She is dead. I was so scared that I
never wanted to be a mother again. But God is so wonderful that he
gave me a child who is healthy and perfect. He is my whole life. Isn’t that my love? Jenny’s daughter had
a congenital heart defect. There are several factors that
probably determined this disease. Genetic factors,
family factors and environmental factors. And as for
last year, the issue of pesticides is very relevant. Here in the Thômey community,
we have had 5 cases of congenital malformation in less than two years. It is a small community of about
2,500 inhabitants. It therefore has a very high prevalence,
much higher than the prevalence of congenital malformations
at the national level in Brazil. The question was therefore to check whether
this was linked to exposure to pesticides. Ada Pontes
researched the exposure of these families to pesticides
before the birth of their children. The results are edifying. Lucia worked in a school, surrounded
by fields sprayed with pesticides. Every time a plane flew over
and sprayed the fields, we inside the school would
smell the bad odor of the product and the children in the class
would complain of headaches. And then we saw cases where people
had irritated skin, itching,
rashes and also a lot of headaches and nausea. Lucia’s husband worked
on sprayers. To give you an idea,
it smelled rotten. When he came home, he would take a shower and
clean himself with lots of soap. But even with the perfume he wore
to mask the smell of pesticides, I said, “He was doing, it smells rotten.” It smelled like poison on his skin,
as if poison was evaporating from the skin. After a while,
he felt really bad. He started to have
inflammation of the liver. Dieny, the mother of little Sofia, who
died shortly after birth, found herself under a hail
of pesticides at the very beginning of her pregnancy, during
an aerial spraying operation. Her husband, also frequently exposed,
does not wish to speak in front of our camera. Adapontes’ research
leaves no doubt. Pesticides are the cause of
the tragedies experienced by these families. Metabolites of 10 pyrethroids were found
in the urine of these children. Pyrethroids are
a class of pesticides. Recent studies show that
chronic exposure to pyrethroids, even at low doses,
can cause the health problems we have identified here,
such as birth defects and precocious puberty. What I feel, beyond revolt,
is sadness. Sometimes it’s anger. It is not safe to imagine what
our lives would have been like if this had not happened, if the producers had not
thought only of their power. These are people who don’t live
in the community, who don’t have children in school,
who don’t have parents here,
who only aim to enrich themselves to profit and take what
our land offers them. And that’s it.
Sometimes political struggle pays off. Sahara Congressman Renato Roseno
passed a law in 2018 banning aerial spraying throughout the state. This victory prompted the big
operators to counterattack. The agribusiness strategy is
to overturn the law in the Supreme Court because it does not want the same
law to be passed in other states. There are several other legislatures
in other states that are discussing the same laws that are very much inspired
by what we have done here. And if we win in the Supreme Court,
obviously, that will encourage other states to pass the same laws. In another revolution,
MP Roséno is now proposing to put an end to a tax scandal. Pesticides are not
subject to any tax. If you go to the pharmacy and buy
aspirin, you pay at least 17 percent tax. If you buy glyphosate,
you don’t pay any tax. It’s so absurd, it’s shameful. That is, the state encourages
the production and consumption of pesticides. And finally, logically, he would like to see an
end to the European Union’s double standards. Why can something that is banned
in Europe be used here? This is hypocrisy. This neoliberal model,
this international division of the economy, has generated what we call
here sacrificial zones, the places where the
most dangerous activities have been relocated. And who pays the bill?
Public health. The European Union must therefore review
its trade standards and prevent these transnational corporations from exporting
pesticides here that they cannot sell there. Invited to Brussels by MEPs, Brazilian geographer Larissa Bombardi urged the European Union
to open its eyes. Good morning. First of all, it’s a
pleasure to be here. More than 500 babies have been poisoned
by agrotoxins in Brazil, according to official figures. And it’s possible that this represents
more than 25,000 babies poisoned during this period. I felt that the
MEPs were aware of the situation. It is completely inhumane to sell prohibited
substances elsewhere at home. We would be worth less than others. The population in Brazil has less value. About 20% of the intoxicated population
in Brazil are children and young people aged 0 to 19. There are even babies. We are facing
a form of infanticide. I have no problem using
that word because that’s what the data shows. His international denunciation did not
please the Brazilian agroindustry at all. Threatened, Larissa Bombardi decided it was
prudent to leave Brazil. Every year, around fifty
environmental activists are murdered there. Larissa Bombardi now lives in Europe. In Brussels, MEPs sent
a letter to the European Commission to end this
cycle of poisoning. But for me, the chemical industry
today, for me, they are criminals. It takes the fight of the European deputies
to say: Wait, there is something wrong here. And now we are fighting to ensure
that neither manufacturing, nor storage, nor export can
be possible from the moment we ban molecules
due to their toxicity. The Commission has clearly stated
that it recognizes that there is still an issue, an aberration,
and that it will take it into account and respond to it,
and move towards a ban on the production and export
of these dangerous substances. We are still a long way from that,
but the European Union has the power to change the situation. The ban on importing
food produced with banned pesticides is a powerful
force for change on the ground. That is to say, when
coffee or orange exports to Europe are blocked at the border because they
contain residues of substances banned in Europe,
this can cause a real change on the ground towards
gentler and safer production methods. MEPs and NGOs have received
support from the UN Human Rights Rapporteur, but the
European Commission is slow to propose a law. In France, since the beginning of
2022, the Egalim law has banned the production
and export of these pesticides, but implementing decrees
could provide for exceptions. In Germany, a similar motion was rejected by MPs in March 2021. But in the pesticide kingdom of Brazil
itself, the worst is no longer certain. The landless peasants’ movement
proves this. This group of small farmers,
independent of the agro-industry, has become one of the
world’s largest producers of organic rice, meaning it is free of any chemicals. Until 2001, I worked with my family growing tobacco and other products in conventional agriculture. And then what happened was
I had a lot of health problems. It was related to the pesticides
or poisons I was using. And it allowed me to change
to a healthier life. We have been
producing certified organic rice for 18 years now. This process started with a few
families and every year more and more join us. So much so that this year,
I sought investment to establish a partnership with
a management group, because we are now more than 200
families involved in rice production. It is a great conquest. It is a struggle guided
by the idea of ​​justice. It is possible to feed the
Brazilian population sufficiently by ensuring food security and sovereignty
with quality food without pesticides. It’s something that represents
a light at the end of the tunnel. It’s a very exciting experience
that shows us that it is possible. Cleverly, the landless have rediscovered
the pleasure of working with nature and not against it. This shows the way to a different future
for their health, their country and our planet.

Santé sacrifiée, profits garantis : l’envers des pesticides européens. ✋ Les enjeux du Monde ? Ils sont ici 👉 https://bit.ly/3nbDE0S Abonnez-vous 🙏

00:00 Introduction – le Brésil, champion des pesticides
02:00 Produits interdits en Europe, vendus au Brésil
07:18 L’exportation massive des agrotoxiques
19:23 L’eau contaminée des grandes villes
26:00 Paraquat : l’herbicide mortel
33:20 Scandales et falsifications industrielles
41:25 La “muse du poison” et le pouvoir politique
47:05 Les fruits contaminés exportés vers l’Europe
59:32 Résidus de pesticides dans nos assiettes
01:04:47 Maladies, cancers et malformations
01:19:32 Alternatives agricoles et espoir

Eldorado pour les agro-industries chimiques, le Brésil est complaisamment alimenté en pesticides par une Europe qui se débarrasse de ses produits interdits. Un cynisme aux conséquences désastreuses pour la santé, épinglé par une enquête accablante.

C’est un paradis à l’atmosphère viciée. Perverti par une législation poreuse à toutes les manipulations et une classe politique corrompue, le Brésil peut être considéré comme le champion mondial… des agrotoxiques. Avec 3 669 pesticides autorisés, le géant d’Amérique du Sud s’affirme comme l’eldorado des multinationales. Son président, Jair Bolsonaro, n’a-t-il pas assuré “Je suis votre employé” aux patrons de l’agroalimentaire, dès son investiture en 2019 ? Conséquence de cette impunité accordée aux industriels, la population est largement contaminée par des cocktails d’herbicides, pesticides ou fongicides, agissant sur la santé comme des bombes à retardement. Chez les enfants, malformations et problèmes de croissance se multiplient, alors que l’eau de consommation de la moitié des villes serait considérée comme non potable en Europe. Notre continent, justement, s’avère le grand bénéficiaire, cynique et sans scrupules, de cette dérégulation : près de 80 000 tonnes de pesticides désormais interdits sur notre sol sont vendues au Brésil chaque année par des groupes chimiques comme Bayer (qui a absorbé Monsanto en 2018) et BASF en Allemagne, ou Syngenta en Suisse. Ces firmes réalisent ainsi la moitié de leur chiffre d’affaires…

👉 A voir également sur Notre Monde :
Diabète : comment l’industrie pharmaceutique maintient la maladie ? https://youtu.be/19ZPdOCXX6E
Famine mondiale : le prix de nos excès agricoles https://youtu.be/41mFIGRKwfw
Agroécologie : Peut-on nourrir le monde sans pesticides ? https://youtu.be/M6ukds8Zaog

👉 Découvrez notre playlist dédiée à la santé publique https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG-nKhA0skHfiR26T4j-pLxztaDsah2B5&si=_1PJppeEr1hSeXik

“Pesticides : l’hypocrisie européenne”
Réalisé par Stenka Quillet
Tous Droits Réservés

#Pesticides #Europe #Brésil #SantéPublique #Agroindustrie #DocumentaireMonde