Research investment reduced 83.3% of the use of agrochemicals on tobacco crops in Brazil

The tobacco crops in Brazil had a reduction of the use of active ingredients by nearly 83.3% in the last two decades in the country. Currently, just 1.1 kilogram per hectare is used, an index that elevated tobacco crop to the condition of commercial agricultural products that uses the least of agrochemicals in the country.

This reduction, according to the president of the Insterstate Union of the Tobacco Industry, Iro Scünke, is due to the research and development works promoted by the industries in the sector and actions of awareness with farmers. Through the Integrated System of Tobacco Production, producers commit to use only registered products and authorized by the Ministry of Agriculture and are guided only on quantities recommended for the crop.

Besides, a program that contributes for the reduction is the Integrated Plague Management, which determines the monitoring of plague occurrences and the preservation of its natural enemies, fostering biological control. “For us, the reduction of agrochemicals is environmental responsibility and sustainability of the business,” explains Schünke.

The data of reduction of the use of agrochemicals on the tobacco crops were presented on studies made by universities, public and private research centers. Examples are the researches conducted by the Superior Agriculture School Luiz de Queiroz of the University of São Paulo, and by the Industry Union of Sugarcane and the Agronomic Engineering School of the Federal University of Pelotas.

The conclusions of the investigations show that, while tobacco uses less than one kilogram of active ingredients per hectare, in other crops the volumes are much higher. For example, tomato crop receives 36 kilograms per hectare; the potato requires an average of 28.4 kilograms per hectare, and strawberry needs 5.5 kilograms per hectare.

Packages recycling

Besides the reduction of the use of agrochemicals, the tobacco sector promotes the collection of the packages of the products to avoid improper disposal and the risks of pollution. Through the program of Reception of Agrochemicals Empty Packages, there was a collection of over 12.3 million used recipients in 16 years.

According to the program coordinator, Carlos Sehm, besides the packages of used products on tobacco, the action brings the opportunity to farmers to deliver the packages used in other crops. “This contributes to the increase of packages collected by the program because other crops use a lot higher volumes of agrochemicals comparing to tobacco,” he explains.