Nearly 100 municipalities in Argentine province limit use of agrochemicals

Ninety seven municipalities in the province of Santa Fe, one of the major agricultural regions in Argentina, had put in practice norms to regulate sprayings as a consequence of a growing social pressure with respect to health and environmental laws, a study from the Agrarian School of the National University of Rosario reveals. The research adverted that in the last year “the inhabitants of those place perceive the use of crop protection product as a potential risk for human health and the environment”.

"The consideration about environment is growing in the society as an attention point. This is demonstrated for the high degree of preoccupation put at the agricultural production in the last times referring to plant health products,” adds the document, which explains that this situation generates inconvenience between farmers and inhabitants of these zones. Also according to the study, this procedure is given mostly in peri-urban areas, which constitute in “intermediary space and without apparent delimitation between what is considered the city and starts the field”.

The investigators propose that in order to attend this social phenomenon – that is confirmed in the south of the province and to replicate in all of the Pampean region – it is necessary to develop the concept of “agromedicine” with the goal of “generating a new space for information and formation of phytosanitary management for the actors of production, rural and urban life “that associates in an intimal manner of the aspect: health and production”.

The survey was held at the departments of Bulacio, Giuliani and Gonella (peri-urban) and the departments of Belgrano, Iriondo, Caseros, Constitución, San Lorenzo and General López, all located in the south of the Santa Fe province. In 81% of the localities, there are decrees related to the application of crop protection products.

Another relevant fact is that the vast majority of these regulations were elaborated during the established period in the last 10 years, when the agricultural model reached its production peak and multiplied considerably the use of herbicides and pesticides as fundamental input for the production of transgenic soybeans.

"Of those locations with more decrees, it was observed a greater proportion that were promulgated between 2006 and 2010,” says the investigation. In Santa Fe, there is legislation on the issue since the year 1978, but the current legislation comes from laws sanctioned in 1995.

For the researchers at the Agrarian School, this normative explosion in the last decade was due to the growing public attention on agrochemical application due to the “accidents and possible bad agricultural practices of the phytosanitary applications,” in which has taken to an “improvement of regulations and controls” in provincial and municipal level.

The work suggests that the municipalities “should delimit well the urban and the rural zone”, and the decrees should “be applicable according to the idiosyncrasy of each population” and according to the “consensus of all stakeholders”.