State deputy Marcelino Galo (PT) is determined to change the relationship between the state of Bahia and its environment. Last Monday, the 22nd, the PT parliamentarian presented six bills aimed at limiting the use of pesticides in Bahian territory, protecting rivers and protecting organic agricultural production. All proposals were published in the Official Gazette of the Legislative Assembly of Bahia (Alba) this Wednesday, 24th.
The first project forwarded by Galo aims to definitively prohibit, in the state of Bahia, the use of herbicide pesticides for the purpose of cleaning public roads. The practice, known as “chemical weeding”, is prohibited by Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) in urban areas, but it continues to be carried out inadvertently by the population.
According to Marcelino, his bill seeks to reinforce the ban in urban areas and definitively establish a ban on chemical weeding in rural areas of Bahia as well.
“It is used today in both urban and rural areas. It’s an absurd. When you go to the countryside, people are the ones who do urban cleaning. And, as chemical weeding makes the effort less, people disregard the risk of it. And then chemical weeding is replacing practically everything. It is a very big risk to public health, from contamination, from street drainage and exhaustion. So this needs to be controlled”, said Marcelino, in an interview with Portal A AFTERNOON.
In a second project, Marcelino Galo calls for a ban on the use of aircraft to spray pesticides on plantations. According to them, in addition to environmental damage, this practice would also be causing health problems among the population.
“We already know, and I made this clear in the project’s justification, that this type of practice harms both rural workers and the people who consume what is produced there. There are cases of cancer, neurological problems, problems during pregnancy, with fetuses. There are several studies that point to this”, explained the deputy.
Marcelino Galo also wants to force the government of Bahia to carry out, every six months, an analysis to detect the presence of pesticides in the treated water offered for consumption by the population, in the rivers that flow in the state and also in the water table.
The results of these analyzes should be published in the Official State Gazette (DOE) and on a website, to be prepared by the state management.
“This is yet another project that tries to protect Bahians from the effects that the consumption of pesticides can have on people’s health. A test has already shown that 271 municipalities in Bahia had water, which comes out of the tap in people’s homes, contaminated by pesticides”, said the parliamentarian.
According to Marcelino Galo, his projects do not want to end the use of pesticides in Bahia, but rather establish criteria that limit the use of the product, preventing possible contamination from affecting the health of the population.
“Most of these projects aim for more rigorous and effective control. Nobody is crazy. We know that there are no conditions for a total ban”, Galo declared to Portal A AFTERNOON.
Another bill also wants to definitively ban the use of pesticides that contain, in their composition, the following active ingredients: abamectin, acephate, benomyl, carbofuran, cyhexatin, endosulfan, emamectin, phorate, phosmet, glyphosate, heptachlor, lactofem, lindane , methamidophos, monocrotophos, paraquat, methyl parathion, pentachlorophenol, thiram, trichlorfon and any substance from the chemical group of organochlorines.
Furthermore, Marcelino Galo wants to prohibit the use of any pesticide in Bahia that is prohibited in the country that produces it. In the deputy’s assessment, if that product cannot be used in its territory of origin, then it should not be authorized in Brazil either.
“There are pesticides that Germany manufactures and does not use. China doesn’t use it and sends it here. Brazil is the largest importer of pesticides in the world. And importing a product that is originally prohibited makes no sense. That’s why I specified these listed products”, explained the PT member.
Organic fairs
Marcelino Galo’s other two proposals are also related to the environmental agenda, but only indirectly linked to the use of pesticides. One of them is the regulation of fairs dedicated to the sale of organic products.
For the parliamentarian, the approval of the law would be essential to curb fraud in this type of commerce, which often ends up offering products with pesticides as if they were truly organic.
“We have to regulate and monitor. The product of organic origin must be certified. And at fairs we have to check this, because we have already seen some fraud. Some try to sell traditional products as if they were organic. It is important to regulate, to provide security to the consumer,” Galo told Portal A AFTERNOON.
Finally, the PT member wants to establish September 25th as the State Day of the Rivers of Bahia, to carry out actions, campaigns, projects and plans aimed at protecting, preserving and conserving the state’s water sources, with awareness and environmental education.
The date was chosen in honor of the Catholic bishop Dom Luiz Flávio Cappio, from the diocese of Barra, who went on a hunger strike in protest against the degradation of the São Francisco River, which crosses the hinterland of Bahia from south to north.
