Pesticides offer “food for thought” in understanding various dimensions of food inequalities: environmental chemical contamination and health problems affecting farm workers and nearby communities, environmental racism, the loss of biodiversity, and the contribution to climate change through fossil-fuel-based chemicals. Struggles around pesticides are characterized by knowledge asymmetries vis-à-vis- its safety and gendered politicisation, as women usually assume the burden to care for the sick and fight contamination. Global inequalities are expressed in the fact that most of the hazardous pesticides are prohibited in its producing countries but sold in developing ones. This workshop will discuss research findings of Larissa Bombardi, Renato Balbim and Renata Motta. We will examine the possibilities of interdisciplinary research on pesticides and beyond.

Program  

09h00 - Opening words – Prof. Renata Motta | Food for Justice, Freie Universität Berlin   

09h30 - PRESENTATIONS        

• Cartography of Pesticides in Brazil and connections to the European Union, by Larissa Mies Bombardi | Universidade de São Paulo       

• Power and Politics of Food and Pesticides. Creative Destruction in Brazil, by Renato Balbim | University of California Irvine & Institute of Applied Economic Research in Brazil    

11h00 - DEBATE    

12h00 - CLOSING

Speakers

LARISSA BOMBARDI is since 2007 professor in the Department of Geography at the Universidade de São Paulo. She holds a Ph.D. in Human Geography from the same university. She is author of “A Geography of Agrotoxins Use in Brazil and its Relations to the European Union”, published in 2017 and was Post-Doctorate fellow at the Federal Fluminense University (Brazil) and the Strathclyde University (Scotland). As a researcher of the use of pesticides for over ten years, she has published several articles and interviews about this topic in national and international journals and media.

RENATO BALBIM is Visiting Scholar at University of California Irvine. He holds a PhD in Human Geography from the Universidade de São Paulo. He is Senior Research and Planning Advisor at the Institute of Applied Economic Research IPEA, former Director of Urban Planning - Ministry of Cities (Brazil), former Coordinator of Urban Rehabilitation - Ministry of Cities (Brazil), Senior Consultant at Cities Alliance - World Bank (Brazil). He has several publications as editor and author of ten books on urban and regional development as well as several articles in journals and books.