MINAS GERAIS, BRAZIL \u2013 This summer Jos\u00e9 Braga, a coffee farmer of 46, will sit in the back of a truck in a chaos of 36 random co-workers, on dusty and bumpy roads, off to a coffee plantation where he will work throughout the summer.
\nJos\u00e9 Braga is more fortunate than most coffee farmers in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. He owns a small plot of land, on which he has a house and can grow his own coffee and a few additional crops. However, the income from his land is not nearly high enough to support himself and his family. And this year has been the driest in many, which will give a poor harvest. That is why Jos\u00e9 Braga will, again this year, take the harsh work picking coffee as a day labourer in one of the big, powerful farmers\u2019 coffee plantations.<\/p>\n
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Jos\u00e9 Braga will work without a contract or the rights and benefits that workers should have under Brazilian law. But that is not his biggest concern. \u201dCancer is the worst problem, because so many use pesticides. That is what I am afraid of\u201d, he explains.<\/p>\n
Dalberto Luiz Gomes, director of CRESOL, a workers union in nearby Muria\u00e9, confirms this. \u201dThe biggest problem in the coffee industry is cancer\u201d, he says. There is no doubt in his mind as he continues to explain, how the cancer is directly linked to the use of pesticides.
\nJos\u00e9 Alves, administrative manager at the Cancer Hospital Fundac\u00e3o Cristiano Varella in the coffee region of Minas Gerais, confirms that \u201cthe three most common types of cancer can be related to the use of pesticides\u201d; he continues: \u201cThe cancer patients mainly come from small family farms, which are plentiful in this area,\u201d and the number of patients is on the rise. But contrary to the union director, Jos\u00e9 Alves argues that the cancer stems from alcohol and tobacco. That the rural population has a high risk of getting cancer, can be related to the fact that \u201cthey smoke and drink more\u201d and that the chemicals that can be found in cigarettes cause cancer.
\nBack at the union, the director Dalberto Luiz Gomes is not surprised to hear the doctor blaming cigarettes. He still believes that the pesticides are the reason that cancer is on the rise in the region:
\n\u201cI have no technical evidence, but this is what I hear and experience\u201d.
\nAnd he is far from the only one with that opinion. Based on first hand impressions and supported by media articles, student reports, farmers, and NGOs, union leaders and fiscal work auditors, he argues that pesticide-related cancer is both very real and a growing phenomenon.
\nChances are that cancer is just one part of the problem. Bruno Arnelli Lopes, a fiscal work auditor with the Ministry of Labour in Rio de Janeiro, explains how shocked he was when he read news articles on the subject. They state that, due to pesticides, the farmers working with tomatoes, plants and coffee not only triple the risk of getting cancer. They are also much more likely to have severe depressions leading to a tripling of the suicide rate in the industry.<\/p>\n
Brazilian agriculture is notoriously known for using very strong toxic pesticides. And they use a lot of it, says farm worker Jos\u00e9 Braga: \u201dThere are weed and rushes between the coffee trees. To remove them we throw chemicals on it. Then we throw other chemicals to make the coffee grow\u201d.
\nAnd as safety equipment in many farms is but a wish, it is no wonder Jos\u00e9 Braga is afraid of how the toxics might affect him.
\nPresident of the Rural Workers Union in Manhua\u00e7u, Jos\u00e9 Adenil Campos, explains that this is a common problem within the coffee plantations.
\n\u201cThis problem is increasing. It is dangerous pesticides and most of the workers do not have any protective gear\u201d, he continues; \u201cif they have some gear, they lack something else\u201d.
\nJos\u00e9 Adenil Campos says that the workers lack simple equipment such as masks, proper boots or even gloves. Furthermore, there is almost no awareness of how dangerous the chemicals are. For example there are cases where farm-workers decide not to use masks, just because of the heat, says Jos\u00e9 Adenil Campos. He adds that most often the workers simply do not have a choice, as they are offered no safety equipment and they do not have money to buy it themselves.
\nJuares Campos, who works for a landowner in Manhua\u00e7u, has first-hand experience with the pesticides. \u201cThe farmer came with some pesticides that I had to spread on his land\u201d. He stretches out his arms, completely covered in red rashes.
\n\u201cHis arms have been like this for a long time, he has even been to the hospital twice\u201d tells his wife, Joana D\u2019Ark.<\/p>\n
The problem goes beyond safety equipment and farmers\u2019 health as the toxics contaminate the farms\u2019 water supply and spread on to the surrounding areas. Union director Dalberto Luiz Gomes explains: \u201csome students took samples of the water in a village near Muria\u00e9 and the water was full of pesticides\u201d.
\nRomerito Antunes Perreira, a coffee picker of 29, who is fortunately aware of the problem, says:
\n\u201dI don\u2019t want to drink the farm\u2019s water, because it is so full of chemicals that you get sick. I bring my own water from home\u201d. The trouble is that his own water supply could be full of pesticides as well.<\/p>\n
While the workers often are unaware of how toxic the products are, the pesticide industry uses every mean to sell off their products. Especially the uneducated and often illiterate small scale farmers with minor family plantations are easy victims.
\nValdeli Silva works in the municipal ministry of Agriculture and Environment in Ros\u00e1rio de Limeira, and he knows this problem very well: \u201cThe pesticide industry sells cheap, unlicensed pesticides to the small scale coffee producers at their family farms\u201d. In this way even the pesticides that are too poisonous to be accepted in Brazil are used in the farms.
\nUnion director Dalberto Luiz Gomes explains how the pesticide salesmen convince the small farmers that the coffee cannot grow without the pesticides. He continues \u201cbut once you use the pesticides it ruins the soil\u201d and the following four years nothing can actually grow without using more pesticides. For the small scale farmer that has to provide food for his family it is not an option to wait for the soil to re-fertilize. He will have to buy and use new pesticides to earn his living.<\/p>\n
Back in the Limeira, Valdeli Silva of the municipal ministry of Agriculture is advocating for agricultural sustainability and awareness about how to use pesticides. At his nearby farm Jos\u00e9 Bragas seems to have got the message.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t want to use pesticides on my own farm, because of the risk of cancer\u201d he says.
\nBut he is one of few and most of the farmers are still unaware of the risk they run when they work with pesticides. And though he refuses to use them on his own farm, Jos\u00e9 Bragas will probably have to work with chemicals this summer, when he starts working as a day labourer on the big farms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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