Geographer Larissa Bombardi discussed the presence of pesticide residues in Brazilian food in a scientific research
Source: TV Unicamp
The threats against Brazilian researcher Larissa Mies Bombardi, a professor at the Department of Geography at the University of São Paulo (USP), intensified after the publication in Europe in 2019 of the atlas A geography of pesticide use in Brazil and its relations with the European Union. The work revealed the presence of pesticide residues in Brazilian food. After gaining access to the information, one of Scandinavia’s largest organic supermarket chains began boycotting Brazilian products.
The researcher reveals that she has been intimidated both, professionally and personally, including the disqualification of her research, death threats and a robbery at her home. Bombardi decided to leave Brazil with her two children in April 2021. She now lives in Paris, where she conducts research at the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) as part of a national programme for scientists in exile.
The scientist spent a few weeks in Brazil to launch her book ‘Agrotoxics and Chemical Colonialism’ (Editora Elefante). As well as data on the use of herbicides, pesticides and fungicides by Brazilian agribusiness, the author discusses the concept of chemical colonialism in the book. “The expression chemical colonialism helps to reveal ‘what’ and ‘in what’ this movement of capital has unfolded, when industries based in the central countries of the international economic system sell pesticides banned in their own territories to countries in the global south, particularly in Latin America,” says an excerpt from the book.