Brazilians Don’t Know if Pesticides Are in Their Drinking Water

Expand Discarded pesticide containers in Brazil. © 2018 Human Rights Watch Last month I visited a small rural community in northern Brazil to see how pesticides affect people in the countryside. Brazil, an agricultural powerhouse of industrial farming, is one of the world’s largest users of pesticides. Crops like soy, corn, cotton, and sugar cane are farmed using enormous quantities of pesticides: close to 400,000 tons a year. Of the 10 most widely used pesticides in Brazil, 4 are banned in Europe, indicating how hazardous several are considered by some standards. Residents I met were gripped…

© Human Rights Watch - jeudi 22 mars 2018