Brazilian researcher highlights differences between fertilizer and pesticide at UN
Held at the UNEA headquarters in Geneva (Switzerland), the series of debates had members from 12 countries
The Brazilian researcher Vinicius Benites, from Embrapa Solos, focused his participation in the UN Assembly for the Environment (UNEA) on differentiating between fertilizers and pesticides.
Held at the UNEA headquarters in Geneva (Switzerland), the series of debates had members from 12 countries and the Embrapa representative participated in the group that debated fertilizers.
Vinicius’ concern was to differentiate fertilizers from pesticides, since there was a great focus of the participants in talking about the negative aspects of fertilizers, without mentioning the positive ones.
“Okay, there are some risks related to the input, but we made a point of mentioning many positive impacts, which even generated a chapter in the book”, adds Vinicius.
Fertilizers
According to him, the debate took place before the fertilizer crisis, caused by the war between Russia and Ukraine. So the agenda was directed towards the responsible use of the input and related risks.
“The main concern of European countries was with the possible contamination caused by fertilizers, so much so that before the launch of the code of conduct for fertilizers there was a similar one on crop protection products”.
Then there was a commitment among the participants to write the book. Vinicius participated in the chapter on the situation of fertilizers in the world in the UNEA’s “Summary report on the health impacts of pesticides and fertilizers and ways to minimize them”.