Campaign groups have warned the British government that trade with Brazil after Brexit incentivise the use of pesticides “contributing to the destruction of the Amazon”.

A new report from the Pesticide Action Network UK has found that increasing trade with Brazil could fund the use of harmful pesticides that are banned in the UK.

Brazil is not only one of the world’s leading agricultural exporters, it is also the world’s third-biggest pesticide user, after China and the US, according to statistics collated by the University of Oxford’s Our World in Data.

Currently, Brazilian farmers are allowed to use almost double the number of hazardous pesticides as those in the UK.

Additionally, the Brazillian government is currently pushing through a bill that would remove laws that currently protect human and environmental health from pesticides.

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Although the UK government proposed a bill that will sanction companies that have deforestation in their supply chains – including farmers in the Amazon who clear the rainforest – there is no such law in place for pesticide use.

“The UK trade secretary is promoting trade with Brazil as providing ‘real opportunities to go further on green trade’,” Pesticide Action Network UK head of policy and campaigns Josie Cohen told The Guardian.

“Meanwhile, Brazil’s overuse of highly toxic pesticides is contributing to the destruction of the Amazon and other crucially important ecosystems, contaminating water and poisoning farmworkers and communities.

“And yet the government has provided no detail on how it will ensure that Brazilian food sold on UK shelves is not contributing to the global climate and nature crises.”

The news comes after Unearthed, Greenpeace’s journalism wing, revealed that the UK exported more than 10,000 tonnes of banned pesticides in 2020.

Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist Doug Parr added: “The UK government is failing to keep up with the European Commission, who have rightly committed to ending the export of these banned chemicals.”

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