Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Thursday signed into law the so-called pesticides bill easing down restrictions on the use of those chemicals, albeit with partial vetoes, it was reported in Brasilia.
According to a report from the National Institute of Agropecuarian Technology (INTA) and the national universities of San Martín (Unsam) and of the Litoral (UNL), a high number of biocides was detected in the Salado River basin in the province of Santa Fe.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee has ruled in Geneva that indigenous people are affected by Paraguayan companies spreading pesticides in areas neighbouring homes, schools, roads and rivers thus affecting the water supply to indigenous peoples, causing diarrhoea, vomiting, respiratory problems and headaches, were entitled to reparations.
More than half a billion bees dropped dead in Brazil within just three months, according to Bloomberg. Researchers say the main cause of death is pesticides, which could end up affecting more than the bees.
Brazil's agriculture minister on Tuesday defended a record number of pesticide and weedkiller approvals this year, saying the government was not “putting poison on anyone's plate.”
On April 22, 1970, millions of people took to the streets to protest the negative impacts of 150 years of industrial development.
The tragic incident in Bihar, India, where 23 school children died after eating a school meal contaminated with monocrotophos, is an important reminder to speed up the withdrawal of highly hazardous pesticides from markets in developing countries, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Tuesday.
A Uruguayan rural school teacher who suffered the consequences of agro-toxics spraying from neighbouring soybean crops has won a civil court demand against the fumigation company. The court ruled that Agronegocios del Plata, ADP, must compensate Silvia Nobelasco the equivalent to 6.800 dollars.
Shell subsidiary that makes bio-diesel in Brazil has dropped controversial plans to buy sugar cane grown on land taken from indigenous people, according to Survival International.
The trade of illegal and counterfeit pesticides is proliferating in Europe reports Europol. The exceptional ‘low risk – high profit’ margin, combined with the lack of harmonisation in legislation and implementation, make this a fast growing area of organised crime.