The legislature of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, an industrial agriculture hub, is considering a bill that would drastically reduce buffer zones meant to limit communities' exposure to pesticides, Human Rights Watch said today.
Ground application of pesticides within 300 meters of communities and their water sources is currently illegal in Mato Grosso. If adopted, Bill No. 1833/2023 would reduce this distance to just 90 meters for large farms and 25 meters for medium farms, and would eliminate buffer zones entirely for small farms. These reductions would further expose communities to the risks of acute pesticide poisoning and other serious health harms including cancer, hormonal conditions, infertility, miscarriage, negative impacts on fetal development, neurological diseases, and death.
"People living near industrial farms in Mato Grosso are already being poisoned by pesticides and experiencing higher rates of cancer and miscarriage, and reducing buffer zones will only exacerbate this public health crisis," said Julia Bleckner, senior health and human rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. "The buffer zone bill is part of a worrying trend of deregulation of pesticides in Brazil, underscoring the dangerous influence of agribusiness over policymaking."
Civil society activists are deeply concerned that the bill is moving forward quickly without adequate consultation, including with public health experts. On October 2, 2024, activists formally requested a public hearing on the health and environmental impacts of the bill, but the groups have received no response. Bill No. 1833/2023 represents a worrying backslide in protections against the harm of pesticides in Brazil and would set a dangerous precedent for other states in the country, Human Rights Watch said. Mato Grosso lawmakers should reject the bill.
Buffer zones around pesticide use - for both aerial spraying and ground application - are important to mitigate the effects of pesticides drifting into adjacent communities. Pesticides can drift up to 1,000 kilometers, depending on a variety of factors related to how they are sprayed. National regulations require a 500 meter minimum for all aerial spraying of pesticides, but regulations on ground spraying are left up to the states even though pesticides also drift during ground application, including into water sources.
Even the best buffer zones are not sufficient to protect communities and workers from the harms of exposure to certain pesticides used in Brazil, many of which are banned or severely restricted for use in the EU, UK, and elsewhere because of their links to health or environmental harms, Human Rights Watch said.
On average, a person dies every three days from pesticide poisoning in Brazil, according to data from the Health Ministry's notification system. These numbers are most likely a low estimate given barriers to accessing health services, lack of training of healthcare workers, underreporting of occupational poisoning out of fear of retaliation from employers, and because pesticide poisoning has become so normalized in the region that many people do not report incidents. A 2022 survey of nearly 5,000 people in Mato Grosso estimated that for every reported case of pesticide poisoning in the state, 26 go unrecorded.
In May 2024, Human Rights Watch interviewed 18 people living adjacent to farms in Mato Grosso, including 5 people from Quilombos (Afro-Brazilian rural communities), 10 from Indigenous communities, and 3 from landless rural communities. People interviewed gave accounts of experiences of acute pesticide poisoning and described the impact on their ability to practice ecological farming, and the cumulative impact on their lives and livelihoods of persistent spraying of pesticides near their communities. Human Rights Watch also interviewed 19 scientists, activists, and lawyers with expertise in pesticides in Brazil. In 2018, Human Rights Watch published a report based on interviews with 73 people affected by pesticide drift in Brazil.
Mato Grosso is a pesticide epicenter. According to the most recent public government data, Brazil consumes over 800,000 tons of pesticides annually, among the most in the world. Nearly a quarter of those pesticides are used in Mato Grosso alone, even though the state covers only about 10 percent of Brazil's territory. Data from 2018 showed that people living in some of the state's rural districts were on average exposed to over 300 liters of pesticides per year through the air, residue on their own crops, and in their water used to bathe, cook, and drink.
Based on publicly available official data, at least 378 of the over 2480 pesticide products registered for use in Mato Grosso state include active ingredients that are classified as "highly hazardous" by the Pesticide Action Network, an international advocacy organization, meaning that they "are acknowledged to present particularly high levels of acute or chronic hazards to health or environment" under international classification systems.
Despite these risks, some activists and policymakers said that it is difficult and at times risky to research, report on, and seek to regulate pesticides in Mato Grosso. As a prosecutor said, "Mato Grosso is an epicenter of agribusiness…. It is definitely a challenge working on this issue. It is a forbidden topic here. If you try to regulate pesticides, you won't advance." Researchers studying the health impact of pesticide use in Mato Grosso said that landowners had threatened them during their investigations.
Despite banning their use within their own borders, European countries continue to export many of these banned pesticides to the global south, including Brazil. Companies in the EU are not only manufacturing and exporting pesticides that are considered too harmful for their own citizens, but, as shown by Bill 1833/2023, they are exporting them to places where regulations to protect people against them are weak, Human Rights Watch said.
On October 16, the Brazilian government committed to a long-awaited National Pesticide Reduction Plan set to launch on December 3 aimed at phasing out highly hazardous pesticides, especially those banned in the EU and elsewhere, and investing in organic and agroecological alternatives. "It is unreasonable for pesticides that are banned in the world to be freely sold here," Márcio Macêdo, minister of the General Secretariat of the Presidency, said when the plan was announced. "This harms the health of our people."
All states, including Brazil and pesticide-exporting governments, have an obligation to protect people's rights to health, life, livelihoods, and a healthy environment. When it comes to health and the environment, countries have a duty to apply the precautionary principle, meaning that countries should regulate pesticides to limit or prohibit their use when there is reason or evidence to believe that they may be harmful.
The Brazilian government should take this opportunity to build a forceful strategy that targets pesticides banned in the EU and other harmful pesticides and should invest in building substantial support for organic and agroecological farming, Human Rights Watch said.
"Mato Grosso state legislators should reject the buffer zone bill," Bleckner said. "Instead of bringing pesticides closer to communities, policymakers in Mato Grosso should listen to public health experts in the state who have called for expanded buffer zones, more stringent monitoring and regulation of pesticides, bans on pesticides that are highly hazardous, and substantial investment in ecologically sound agriculture."
Even with the existing 300-meter buffer zone regulation, people interviewed described experiencing acute symptoms of pesticide poisoning within 48 hours after seeing pesticide spraying nearby, or smelling pesticides recently applied to nearby fields. The chief of a village in the Sangradouro territory of the Xavante Indigenous people said residents suffer headaches, nausea, and dizziness when the wind blows in the direction of the community, bringing the smell of pesticides. Symptoms of poisoning include sweating, elevated heart rate, vomiting, nausea, headache, burning eyes and throat, dizziness, and can result in death.
Longer term exposure to some of the pesticides used in Mato Grosso is associated with cancer and neurological diseases, as well as endocrine disruption that can cause hormonal conditions, infertility, and an increased rate of miscarriage. Recent studies in the state have shown a correlation between regional cancer prevalence and pesticide use. A 2023 study by academics from the Federal University of Mato Grosso found that regions of the state with higher pesticide use had more miscarriages.
Some Quilombola and Indigenous leaders said that the health effects of pesticides sprayed by nearby industrial farms effectively forced them to move from their land. If the buffer zone bill passes, farms will be allowed to spray pesticides even closer to communities, forcing more people to face the impossible choice of suffering significant health effects or leaving their land.
Winti Suya, an indigenous leader of the Khikatxi village of the Suya people in Wawi Indigenous territory, made the decision in 2018 to move the entire village 30 kilometers to escape pesticides drifting into their territory. He said:
After five years of living there, the planting became very intense and more frequent. They put poison on the soybeans, sprayed first by tractor and then by plane. And with this plane, it reaches further. During the rainy season, they [the pesticides] reach us. They come from the farm and arrive in our village, and many diseases started to appear.… The people decided with me to leave and make this move to build a new village. We had a lot of infrastructure: school, basic health unit, association headquarters. We also had the village structure built. Even so, we made the decision that the health of the population was more important, and to take our people as far away from the pesticides as possible.
Despite moving, Suya fears that the pesticides drifting from the nearby farms are still affecting the health of his community. He also remains concerned that the pesticides could reach the community through the river that passes through farms before reaching the village:
We are concerned about pesticides that could reach the water and the fish in the river, because we feed on these fish from the river and the game from the forest. We want to do a study to find out if our water contains pesticides because the headwaters of the river where we live are all within the soybean farm.… It concerns all of us, all human beings who live in this municipality of Querência. All the residents need quality nature and water, not just the Indigenous people. It is for everyone.
Small-scale Indigenous and Quilombola farmers also said that repeated exposure to pesticides sprayed by nearby industrial farms contributed to loss of livelihood and food for the community as well as plants used for traditional medicinal purposes.
"This year we tried to plant but couldn't harvest anything because of the pesticides," said a member of a Quilombola community with farms about 700km away. She said they had tried planting pumpkin, corn, and manioc but couldn't harvest anything. "We thought it was the seeds, so we got corn seed with support from FASE [a nongovernmental organization], and we planted. But we still couldn't harvest. We had huge cornstalks, but the corn grew without kernels," she said.
Accounts of Harm from Pesticides
Health Impacts
Farms using pesticides in Mato Grosso are required to maintain a 300-meter buffer zone from communities and their water sources for ground spraying and a 500-meter buffer zone for aerial spraying. However, multiple people interviewed described exposure to pesticides, indicating that the buffer zone is being violated, that 300-500 meters is inadequate, or both.
A member of a Quilombo described the health symptoms she and others experience after pesticides are sprayed nearby, including rashes, itchy eyes and throat, nausea, and vomiting. She said:
Sometimes [you feel it] on the same day, depending on the movement, the weather, the wind. Especially in the early hours of the morning…. It happened [once] when we had to return from a walk. There was a very strong cloud coming towards us, so we had to turn back from the walk to avoid running into it. So, on the day, we already feel that something is bothering us…. I could feel my throat tightening, an irritation. And the nose itches a lot too.
An Indigenous healthcare worker in Mato Grosso said that people in the community he serves often get rashes when they bathe in the stream during rainy season, when the rain washes pesticides into the stream. In the dry season, "you can bathe in the stream with no symptoms," he said. But in rainy season, "the rain takes the poison from the farms and brings it in the river."
The chief of a village in the Sangradouro territory of the Xavante Indigenous people also described health problems from the river during the rainy season. He said that the Rio das Mortes ("River of Deaths") travels through farmland before reaching their village. He said that "it tastes different in the rainy season. [If you bathe], you get a rash. The fish die in the rainy season." Those effects started 17 years ago because of pesticides, he added.
The leader of another Indigenous community said that one of their villages is about 500 meters from a farm and that "during spraying season, the smell of poison reaches the Indigenous community…. I even felt the urge to vomit when I was on the road one day when a plane flew over us spraying. You smell it, and it is terrible. Then the next day, diarrhea can occur. I've experienced it myself and I speak from personal experience."
He said that even though the planes do not spray directly over the Indigenous community, the wind carries the pesticides into their community, underscoring the importance of larger buffer zones. "The plane flies over the edge of the territory and it only sprays their crops, but the wind blows it into the Indigenous area," he said.
In 2018, Human Rights Watch interviewed a woman, Carina, who experienced an incident of acute poisoning in 2017 while studying at a school about 15 meters from a farm.
That night there was a strong smell when I arrived. I could taste it in my mouth. I started feeling sick, nauseous. I tried to drink water to get better, but it didn't help. I started vomiting many times, until I had thrown up all I had in my stomach and was just retching. The classes were cancelled for everyone, and I went home. I felt sick the day after with nausea and headache. I was taking something for my headache, but it didn't help. The morning after I took milk and began to feel better but even my school uniform had the smell of pesticides.
Impacts on Livelihoods, Traditional Medicines
Small-scale farmers described the loss of their own crops after repeated exposure to pesticides from large farms nearby.
A member of a Quilombo said that the crops lost due to pesticides would have been used primarily for consumption in the community and described a culture of exchange between residents. When asked how she knew the crop failure was due to pesticides, she said: "We have knowledge about the plants. "You can see it there," she said, pointing to a papaya tree nearby. "We see that the leaves are green. But when they spray pesticides, the next day the plant is different. It wilts … it wakes up sad."
Multiple communities shared concerns about the impact of pesticides on creole corn seed, an indigenous variety. A member of a Quilombo said that creole corn is frequently used for the community, for food and to feed pigs, chickens, and horses. "But today we see several other Quilombo communities that lost their seeds as a result of the spraying of the pesticide on the monoculture soybeans, corn, and cotton" she said, referring to a common practice in industrial agriculture in which farms grow one species of a crop over a large area. "What about their seeds? They were no longer able to keep those creole seeds since they were contaminated as a result of the neighbor's spraying, and they ended up losing that species."
"[Pesticides] destroy everything, an entire history of life, of struggle, of resistance," she said. "From the moment it is sprayed, whether aerial or terrestrial, this has a direct impact on our territories, on our people. When you plant a vegetable garden, you can't harvest anything you've planted. You toss seeds of rice, corn, [but] you can't harvest because of the pesticide that is sprayed, that end up burning everything. So, with that, what do you do? Lose the seeds."
A Quilombola researcher in a Quilombo said that pesticides have also affected medicinal plants, some of which have disappeared in the past ten years: "What you plant will grow but they don't give fruit as before. It is rotten," the researcher said.
