Flexibilization of the pesticide regulatory policy as an opportunity for Brazilian (necro)politics: Advances in agribusiness and setbacks for health and the environment

Abstract

The chemical-dependent model imposed by agribusiness exposes Brazilian society to pesticides associated with dangerous effects on human health and the environment. The hastening of the neoliberal agenda in the government worsens the pesticide exposure due to policy dismantling that creates protective mechanisms. Thus, this article focuses on Brazilian pesticide regulatory policy dismantling from 2019 to 2020. This descriptive cross-sectional study analyzed statutes, court decisions, documents, and technical reports published between January 2019 and January 2021, but with legal effects until December 2020. We observed the release of an unprecedented number of pesticides and the easing of Brazilian regulatory statutes, whose impacts affect intensely vulnerable groups. It is pointed out that biopower practices mediate the association between agribusiness and deepening of vulnerabilities, which serve the interests of financial capital and determine who should bear the costs of the capitalist mode of production. The Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil worsens this situation, expressing the government necropolitics, which reveals itself as a strategy to eradicate traditional peoples and communities, blacks, poor and rural populations.