Glyphosate: quantities a hundred times above the safe limit for human consumption in Brazil

Abstract

Abstract Brazil is experiencing a situation never before seen in terms of environmental destruction. The expansion of monocultures has increasingly destroyed nature and this also has an impact on the increase in land concentration, rural exodus, poverty and hunger in the countryside. Transgenics allowed the expansion of areas to regions previously not suitable for monoculture production, requiring less labor and more pesticides. Just to produce 68.1 million tons of soybeans, exported last year, it required a quantity of water that could supply 2.03 billion people worldwide. This is the deficit of Brazilian agribusiness that cannot be calculated. If we calculate the expenditures of the public health system as a result of the use of pesticides, this will prove to be increasingly unsustainable. Recently, researchers found amounts of glyphosate a hundred times above the safe limit for human consumption in a stock of wheat stored in a silo in southern Brazil. The official speech of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA) of Brazil is that the record release of pesticides is necessary due to the country's tropical climate. Universities and public research institutes have an important responsibility at this time: to investigate this type of problem and to allow its results to be available to an increasingly critical publicity. Brazil is experiencing a context of clear attacks on public institutions by the current federal government, either with cuts in the transfer of economic resources, or with the scrapping and attempts to destroy its image before public opinion. It is necessary to promote the training of citizen scientists in the field of Environmental Health, in order to be committed to the information to be produced and to the process of critical reflection on social development. Key messages To present an emerging issue in Brazil, related to Glyphosate, when researchers found amounts of glyphosate a hundred times above the safe limit for human consumption in southern Brazil. To present the concern in promoting the training of citizen scientists in the field of Environmental Health, as well as promoting the process of critical reflection and social development.