Articles

Brazilian farmers are using more pesticides on their crops. Despite the significant growth of the area cultivated with transgenic seeds, a technology that promises to reduce chemical use in agricultural production, sales of these products increased by over 72% between 2006 and 2012 - from 480,100 to 826,700 tons – according to data from Sindag, the association that represents pesticide manufacturers in the country. [...] The maize-aphid , an insect that sucks plant sap and leaves malformed cobs, never posed a threat to farmers in Jatai, one of the major production centers of winter maize in the country. But in April, the pest showed indication of its danger when it was about to attack a good part of the 150,000 hectares of the 2011/12 crop in the region. ”It was one of those scares,” recalls Luis Batista, an agronomist at Pioneer.