Ecopolitics of pesticides: critical perspectives for North-South development

Abstract

With the green revolution, globalization, and innovations in international economic relations, forms of food production changed rapidly in the late twentieth century. The end of the Second World War and the Cold War brought an exponential increase in population growth, which included the process of producing food, machinery, biotechnology for genetic modification and pesticides, with the aim of enhancing crops. However, the damage and the ecological imbalance caused by the new agricultural system were soon realized. Consequences were felt in the area of health and the environment and legislation was passed on the subject. This work aims to analyze the emergence and rise of the agrochemical industry in the international scenario from the North to the global South, based on the concept of international critical ecopolitics, in addition to the development perspectives and how these phenomena dialogue with the global environmental crisis experienced in the century XXI and the need for degrowth. Finally, the case of the national legal and political situation in relation to the use, consumption and disposal of pesticides in Brazil was analyzed, focusing on the period between January and October 2019.