Paraquat, manufactured by British company Syngenta, is banned in the UK and the EU. But it is widely used on Paraguay’s booming soya farms, with often terrible effects on the crops and health of local people.
‘Your eyes sting, your tongue burns, everything itches when they spray the pesticides,’ says Sunilda Ayala, a small farmer who lives near a big soya plantation in eastern Paraguay.
‘They spray them using aeroplanes or tractors. They drift over to us in the air, the wind blows them. We get headaches and diarrhoea sometimes’ says Sunilda.
The two most commonly used herbicides in Paraguay are paraquat and glyphosate. Paraquat is banned in Britain and the European Union (EU) because of the health risks, but in 2022, Britain exported more than 2,000 tonnes of it around the world, including to Paraguay, Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala and the United States.
Promotional video for Gramoxone (herbicide based on Paraquat). Video: Agripac SA
Prolonged exposure to paraquat can cause damage to human organs and respiratory problems, according to the EU. The manufacturer of paraquat in Britain, Syngenta, strongly refutes that the pesticide is harmful to human health.
Sunilda lives among a community of small producers in Huber Dure in the Paraguayan region of Canindeyú. Their small plots of lands are surrounded by soya fields. On 21 July 2014 tragedy struck this community. Early in the morning, dozens of people in the community began to suffer vomiting, diarrhoea, headaches and fever.
More than 30 people were hospitalized, but the worst affected were a baby and a toddler: Adela and Adelaida Alvarez Cabrera. Their father, Benito Alvarez, says his three year old daughter woke up suffering stomach pains, diarrhoea, a fever and extreme exhaustion. They took her to the doctor but by the time she had arrived, she had died. His six month old baby also fell ill and died several hours later. Benito believes their deaths were linked to the application of pesticides on a nearby soya field.
‘That morning, we felt that they had thrown something very toxic in with the lime that they put on the soya crops, but there has never been an investigation. We want to know what type of pesticide, what poison, was used’.
The forensic doctor who examined the two children declared the cause of death to be a cold, but the family don’t believe this is credible. The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Toxics has called for an urgent investigation into this case.
Benito tells me that the fumigations continue and he is worried about the health of his other two children.
The death of Ruben Portillo – landmark United Nations ruling
In the nearby community of Yerutí, Ruben Portillo, a small farmer died days after planes spraying pesticides flew close to his farm in 2011. His widow Isabel Bordon told me: ‘He was out on the farm working. We saw the aeroplanes fly past. It started with a headache. Then he got a fever that wouldn’t go away and he began to vomit’.
‘We tried to save him. But when he arrived at the district hospital in Curuguaty, he was already dead,’ says Isabel.
In the first judgement of its kind, the United Nations Human Rights Committee ruled in 2019 that the Paraguayan state had failed to protect Ruben Portillo from pesticide poisoning.
Ruben was never given an autopsy, so it is impossible to know the exact cause of death, but government investigators found traces of the banned pesticides lindane and aldrin in local water sources.
There is no evidence that paraquat played a part in the death of Ruben Portillo or the deaths of Adela and Adeleida Alvarez, but the United Nations ruled that the Paraguayan state was failing to protect people here from pesticide use – so should Britain be exporting a pesticide to Paraguay which it deems so dangerous that it has banned its use at home?
Could heavy paraquat use be contributing to the headaches, nausea, and skin and eye irritations that people here say they regularly suffer?
The UN Special Rapporteur on Toxics Marcos Orellana told LAB that paraquat is dangerous and should be banned by the international community: ‘When it comes to paraquat, there is no question about it being a highly hazardous pesticide. There are scientific uncertainties about other pesticides, but the evidence on paraquat is overwhelming.’
Many companies make paraquat. In Britain, it is manufactured by Syngenta. Syngenta told LAB: ‘Our crop protection products are thoroughly regulated and rigorously assessed, and are safe when used in line with stated guidelines.’
Crop Failures
Despite the landmark United Nations ruling on the dangers of pesticide spraying, Isabel says the fumigations continue. She worries that her children walk to school along a long road bordered by soya plantations which are regularly doused in pesticides. ‘They say it makes their hands and eyes itchy’.
As well as the health risks, Isabel thinks the pesticides are drifting from the soya fields and damaging her crops. She used to grow peanuts, yucca and maize. She shows me a thin, stunted, yucca root: ‘They just won’t grow now,’ she says.
Norma Portillo is Rueben’s sister. She too says pesticide spraying is killing her crops.
‘Before, we planted maize, all types of peanuts and beans. Then the soya plantations expanded round here and we had to stop cultivating our crops because they wouldn’t grow anymore’, says Norma. To make ends meet, her husband has moved to the city to find work.
Paraguay has regulations for the use of pesticides – spraying should not take place within 100 metres of a human residence, school or public place – but Isabel showed me a soya plantation just metres from her land. As I travelled round this region of eastern Paraguay, I saw again and again that the regulations were being flouted.
UN Special Rapporteur Marcos Orellana also noted that the regulations are being ignored: ‘I had the opportunity to conduct an official country visit to Paraguay, and I could observe that it has certain laws on the books, but they are just words on a piece of paper. They are not complied with’.
There are many possible reasons for crop failures. However, the United Nations Human Rights Committee declared that spraying this area with ‘toxic agrochemicals poses a reasonably foreseeable threat’ to the life of Norma, Isabel and other family members ‘given that such large-scale fumigation has contaminated the water they drink and the crops and farm animals which are their source of food’.
‘The environmental cost of production is being transferred to the Global South’
I spoke to Leticia Arrua, a researcher at the non-governmental organisation, BASE-IS which investigates pesticide use in Paraguay. She says that European countries are guilty of double standards.
Leticia Arrua: The environmental cost of agricultural production is being transferred to the countries of the Global South. European countries impose strict environmental standards in their own territory, but they are willing to import goods that are not produced under the same standards. They import food which is grown with pesticides that are banned in their own countries.
Grace Livingstone: What is the impact of pesticide use in Paraguay?
LA: We don’t have systematic studies, but through our investigations and interviews at a community level, people talk about impacts on health, such as headaches, gastrointestinal illnesses and skin complaints.
The statistics show a rise in cancer and they also show an increase in the import and use of pesticides, although there are not studies that systematically indicate a correlation between these phenomena.
Pesticide use also affects campesinos’ livelihoods. Small farmers grow crops for their own consumption and to sell. Companies using pesticides contaminate the campesinos’ crops, they kill their crops, and this generates a series of problems, for example, the consumption of contaminated food and, at an economic level, the complete loss of harvests. Sometimes their water sources are contaminated with agro-toxics.
GL: Soya plantations have spread rapidly in Paraguay, just as they have in other South American countries. The area planted in Paraguay expanded 300 per cent from 1.2 million to 3.6 million hectares between 2000-2022, according to the US foreign agricultural service. Paraguay is the fourth biggest soya exporter in the world and over 96 per cent of soya grown in Paraguay is genetically modified. European and Asian countries import soya mainly for animal feed. What has been the impact of this rapid expansion of soya in Paraguay?
LA: We have seen a big increase in the import of agro-toxics, which is linked to the expansion of genetically modified soya and maize. Just in the last three years, the imports of agro-toxics rose from 50,000 tonnes to 67,000 tonnes. Glyphosate and paraquat are imported in the biggest quantities.
This expansion of soya in eastern Paraguay has been at the expense of small farmers, who have been criminalized and forcibly evicted from their lands. Now campesinos only occupy 6 per cent of agricultural land in Paraguay.
Indigenous lands are being attacked now. Previously in Paraguay indigenous lands were not subjected to the level of violence to which peasant lands were subjected. But since 2018, most of the evictions have been on indigenous lands recognized as ancestral territories. Peasant farmers and indigenous people who are forcibly evicted end up migrating to the cities where they live in poverty.
The expansion of the agricultural frontier has also led to deforestation. Paraguay has one of the highest deforestation rates in the world. The Chaco [a region of biodiverse forests] has particularly high deforestation rates, due to the expansion of cattle ranching and agribusiness. Meanwhile, increasing soya cultivation has caused deforestation in eastern Paraguay even though we have a zero deforestation law which prohibits any land use change in that part of the country.
GL: Can you talk about the impact of neonicotinoid imports. These are insecticides that have been banned in the European Union because of the risk to bees, but several European countries notably Germany and Spain have exported these to Paraguay in the last three years. European countries also export large quantities of neonicotinoids to Brazil and Argentina, where bee-keepers have reported mass deaths of bees, although of course there may be other factors impacting bees such as climate change or viruses.
The insecticide thiamethoxam is manufactured in Britain (where it is banned). The UK exports it to the European Union (where it is also banned), so this British-made thiamethoxam must be being sold on to third countries.
LA: Neonnictonoids are one of the most commonly imported insecticides in Paraguay. They are used not only on soybeans, but also corn and wheat.
Studies show a decline in native insects in soya fields, but an increase in new exotic bugs because resistance occurs. Once again, this has an impact on peasant agriculture.
Those peasant crops are not being constantly fumigated with insecticides, so they end up functioning as a kind of refuge for these pests. All these insects that escape from extensive agriculture go to the peasant crop field and cause enormous damage. We have seen very high populations of pests in peasant crops, pests that are not typical for the food crops that peasants produce, but rather are typical of extensive agriculture, typical of soybeans.
In terms of impacts on bees, there are not systematic studies but mass deaths of bees have been reported in the news in various parts of Paraguay usually during the period when neonicotinoid insecticide are applied. Bee-keepers have reported the massive death of bees in their hives, but I can’t estimate how many bees have died or how many times mass bee deaths have been reported.
The company response
Syngenta said: ‘Paraquat and thiamethoxam are generic products that account for very small percentages of Syngenta’s global sales. Hundreds of companies around the world are registered to sell these products. Syngenta cares deeply about the health and well-being of farmers and agricultural workers, and we are dedicated to providing them with safe and effective products. We invest millions of dollars to stay abreast of independent scientific literature related to the safety of our products. Additionally, we innovate constantly – for example, enhancing labels to emphasize guidance around pollinator safety.’
The latest available UK export data shows that Syngenta-made paraquat was exported to Paraguay and several other Latin American countries in 2022. The company says it no longer sells the pesticide in Paraguay.
Photos by the author, unless otherwise credited.
Grace Livingstone is a journalist and academic. Her books include America’s Backyard: the United States and Latin America from the Monroe Doctrine to the War on Terror.
