In 2017 he published in Portuguese Geography of the use of pesticides in Brazil and its relations with the European Union (without Spanish edition). During the promotion of the book, the researcher gave many interviews and participated in dozens of colloquiums to denounce a curious paradox: German, French or Belgian companies sell to Brazil agrotoxic products vetoed in the EU, which consents to the export of very harmful agents even if they are prohibited in its territory.
Everything went well until 2019, when the English edition of the work came out and its impact was shot. Shortly after, the main chain of organic supermarkets in Scandinavia limited the import of Brazilian products. Then an harassment campaign against Bombardi was activated. “First they tried to discredit me saying that I was lied, that he was a communist and that he was staining the international reputation of the Brazilian agricultural sector,” he tells during the interview, carried out in part during the Movement Fair held last fall in Turin (Italy) and completed by videoconferencing At the end of 2024.
The attacks in the professional field turned into personal threats after a very popular appearance on television. “Someone who identified as a pilot of an agricultural company sent me an email telling me that, if I kept insisting that spraying the fields with pesticides was dangerous, maybe I should get on his plane to verify what was really dangerous,” he continues. Months later, three men assaulted their home with her inside to take her computer, her mobile and little else. “I can’t prove that I had a relationship with my work, but, as a common robbery, it was very strange, since they did not ask where the money or jewels was.”
Bombardi got fed up with fear in the body and with their two children. First he traveled to Paris, where he was used at the Development Research Institute; Then he moved to Belgium, in the Department of Agroecology of the Free University of Brussels. Last year he published Pesticides: a chemical colonialism (Also without Spanish translation), a short essay continues with its first work in which it traces analogies between and the structures of colonial domain in the past.
Ask. Do you think that the EU cares a lot about the health of its citizens, but not so much that of the inhabitants of the global southern?
Answer. It is not only a matter of double standard, but to perpetuate a colonialist structure. Independence processes in Latin American countries such as Brazil maintained the distribution of land in the hands of an oligarchy of landowners. It is they who advocate, together with the European multinationals that control the global agrotoxic market, to maintain very lax laws in the use of pesticides. It is something similar to what happened in the nineteenth century, when Europe benefited from slave labor in its colonies, while slavery was already something inconceivable in the continent.
P. It accuses the EU of being an accomplice not only of very harmful agricultural practices, but also of an exploitation system that is primed with the poorest and, especially, with them.
R. I have spoken more than 40 times about this with representatives of the European Commission. And everyone denys that they occur that they limit themselves to respecting the sovereignty of countries. And yet it occurs. Like the ancient colonizers, they expelled the native peoples from America from their lands, in the book I quote some examples of how the great Brazilian owners to run away and they can plant their monocultures of soybeans or sugar cane.
P. You cannot control then what third countries buy, but what companies under the EU headquarters sell.
R. Of course. But the argument is always the same: freedom of commerce, which should not be imposed on anyone what buys or sells, etc. Hypocrisy reaches the point that agrotoxic importers produced by European companies are obliged to contractually recognize that they are buying prohibited products in the EU. This requirement is presented to public opinion as a way of raising awareness about the pernicious of certain agrotoxic, but the truth is that it only seeks to give legal protection to European companies.
The human, environmental and sanitary cost of agrotoxic is enormous.
P. Some countries such as France have approved more restrictive export laws, but you maintain that you are not serving much.
R. He is curious: now the commercial product cannot be exported, but the substance. We will see what happens in Belgium, where a new law is expected to enter into force in the coming months [en mayo de 2025].
P. In his book he states that the use of agrotoxic in Brazil has been bent in a decade. Do you suspect that European companies are doing more lobby on other continents before the restrictions they find here?
R. It is likely. Croplife Internationala kind of alliance of pesticide producing companies, has a special delegation in Brazil since 2019, and already has a strong presence in Africa. They are everywhere.
P. It also has data from people affected by the use of pesticides in Brazil, and adds that these figures underestimate the real impact and their effect on the development of some types of cancer, very difficult to prove.
R. The human, environmental and sanitary cost of agrotoxic is enormous. In Brazil, in the state of Paraná [un estudio de 2012 con datos de 1998-1999] It was estimated that, for every dollar (0.95 euros) invested in pesticides, $ 1.20 to health spending is dedicated due to the poisoning they cause.
P. You defend common agrotoxic legislation for everyone. Something utopian?
R. Maybe yes. But someone said that utopia is a path forward, a horizon for all civil society movements and scientists who try to raise awareness about this matter.
P. Do things change a lot in the Brazilian agricultural sector depending on who the government is?
R. Not so much, since it is a very rooted structural problem in Brazilian society. We have a few over -population landowners. Without a good relationship with them, it is very difficult to stay in power. Blairo Maggi, one of the world’s world leaders, was Minister of Agriculture between 2016 and 2019 [durante el Gobierno de Michel Temer, de centro liberal]. Before, during the Dilma Rousseff government [del Partido de los Trabajadores, el mismo que Lula]his position was held by Katia Abreu, another landowner to which they nickname Doña Deforestationyou can imagine why. When they told me, I thought it was a joke.
P. Don’t you expect great advances during this second stage of Lula?
R. There is no doubt that it is a progressive government in several aspects: LGBTIQ+Rights, feminism, human rights in general … but in this issue you have your hands tied. In Brazil, the Ministry of Agriculture with agricultural development coexists. The first represents the interests of the great owners and intensive agriculture. The second defends, with a strong environmental commitment, to the peasants and the indigenous communities. There is this schizophrenic tension within the government, but the first usually imposes its voice ensuring that restrictions on the use of pesticides will never go too far against the interests of the powerful.
