Brazil can suffer important losses from ant action

On Tuesday (14), during a public hearing, the Committee on Agriculture, Animal Industry, Supply and Rural Development debated the usage of the chemical substance Sulphluramide in ant-controlling baits, especially leafcutter ants (atta and Acromyrmex), one of the pests which cause the most important losses to Brazilian plantations and to animal industry.

The Brazilian government will have to make a decision regarding the potential banning of that chemical substance during the next meeting of the Stockholm Convention on Organic Persistent Pollutants (POPs), which will be held in Geneva (Switzerland) on the first half of May.

The impact of the prohibition on the usage of Sulphluramide in the composition of baits which control those ants was the biggest worry of most of the participants in the hearing. Brazil has the largest tropical agriculture in the earth and would suffer important losses, due to the action of that pest, which is not found in other continents. There is no other product which could replace Sulphluramide with the same efficiency and smaller toxicity.

Banning or restrictions
Sulphluramide, the active principle of all ant-controlling baits used and produced in Brazil, is among the candidates to banning, because of a recommendation by Sweden, in 2005. The final recommendation of the Committee on Chemical Review was for the inclusion of the so-called PFOs (products deriving from Sulphluramide), and PFOs-F (chemical predecessors of that substance) in the list of organic persistent pollutants condemned by the Stockholm Convention. The participants in the next meeting, in May, in Geneva, will discuss if those products will be included in Annex A (measures for the complete elimination) or in Annex B (which holds some specific permissions, for the so-called acceptable goals). DDT’s usage, for instance, which has been condemned worldwide, is allowed for the control of vectors of illnesses such as malaria.

Contamination
The representative of the National Articulation on Agrarian Ecology (ANA) in that hearing, Zuleica Nycz, vehemently condemned the usage of Sulphluramides as formicids, and stressed that some levels of their derived substances have been found in blood and human-milk samples of Brazilian population and of that of other countries, and have already contaminated the marine fauna of the Brazilian coast. According to the farmers, however, Sulphluramide is, or was, used in several industrial applications, such as semi-conductors, medical and aeronautic equipment (airplane brakes), photograph developing, carpets, upholstery, paper and even in packages for food products. According to them, that could explain the levels of contamination found.

Losses
The Confederation of Agriculture and Animal Industry of Brazil (CNA); the Brazilian Association of Producers of Planted Forests (ABARF); the National Association of National Vegetal Defense (ANDEF); the Brazilian Association of Producers of Baits and Insecticides, and the Brazilian Association of Soybean Producers (APROSOJA) attended the meeting, and unanimously stressed the losses to Brazilian agriculture, caused by the action of ants.

ABARF forecasts the loss of more than US$7 billion per year if the usage of ant-control baits is forbidden. The economic impacts on pastures (soil covering would be harmed in up to 50%), on sugar cane (loss of 3.2 tons of sugar cane per hectare/year), on cacao culture (80% of the material removed by the ants are flower sprouts), in addition to other cultures, such as soybean, corn, fruit and vegetables were pointed out.

The producers’ bodies insisted also on the lack of alternatives, as long as no substitute for Sulphluramide is found. For the representative of the Ministry of Environment, Sérgia de Souza Oliveira, “Brazilian agricultural production is the hostage of a single product, and this is very worrying”. That shows that it is necessary to encourage research, and seek alternatives, she added.

Deputies disagree
The deputies who attended the meeting disagreed on that issue. Nazareno Fonteles (PT-PI) was emphatic in opposing “the defense of life against the defense of money”, and supported that the preservation of health and of the environment are constitutional precepts above any other considerations. “It is necessary to protect life, and that drug should really be eliminated”, he affirmed.
Deputy Moacir Micheletto (PMDB-PR), though, defended the maintenance of the authorization to use Sulphluramide, which has been produced by five domestic companies and exported to Latin America. “Among all possible alternatives, it is the one which has the lowest toxicity (level 4)”, he added. The need to grant the debate a rational and scientific basis was stressed by Deputy Valdir Colatto (PMDB-SC). For him, if there is an effective and harmless substitute, Sulphluramide can be abolished; is there is none, one cannot forbid what works. “It kills less than tobacco, for sure, and nobody challenges the later”, he compared.

Report – Rejane Xavier
Editing – Wilson Silveira
Translation – Positive Idiomas Ltda