Brazil Weighs 35% Pesticide Import Tariffs as Industry Splits

10 November 2026, Brasília: Brazil’s crop protection industry has asked the government to raise import tariffs on several pesticide categories to as much as 35 percent, reopening a dispute between domestic chemical manufacturers and farm groups over the cost of imported crop inputs in Latin America’s largest agricultural economy.

Sindiveg, the trade association representing Brazil’s crop protection formulators, filed four separate requests with Camex, the country’s Foreign Trade Chamber, in October asking for tariffs on a range of formulated pesticides to rise to as high as 35 percent. The association has framed the increase as a response to a surge in low cost imports, particularly from China, which it says undercuts domestic production and threatens local manufacturing capacity built up over the past decade.

A related but separate push came from Abifina, the trade body representing Brazil’s broader chemical industry. Abifina asked Camex to raise tariffs from zero to between 8 and 10 percent, for a period of 12 months, on four specific products: fipronil, glufosinate ammonium, tebuthiuron and triclopir. Sindiveg, together with CropLife Brasil and the industry group Unifito, backed Abifina’s request when it came up for review.

Advisory committee rejects four product proposal

The Câmara Temática de Insumos Agropecuários, an advisory committee tied to Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture, rejected Abifina’s four product proposal by majority vote at an extraordinary meeting held on November 6. Roughly 44 entities took part in the vote, which followed a formal challenge brought by Aenda, the association representing pesticide importers and distributors.

Opposing the tariff increase were the National Confederation of Agriculture, the farmer groups Aprosoja Brasil and Abrapa, Aenda itself and several input distribution companies. Abifina and Sindiveg, the two measures’ sponsors, voted in favor along with CropLife Brasil and Unifito. Aenda has argued that earlier tariff increases on products such as glyphosate, acephate and 2,4-D did not lead to higher domestic output, and it says a further increase would simply raise costs for farmers without building new local capacity.

The committee’s rejection applies only to Abifina’s four product request and does not affect Sindiveg’s separate, broader push to raise tariffs to 35 percent on formulated pesticides across several tariff categories. That request, filed in October, remains pending before Camex with no decision date set.

Aenda used the same meeting to pursue an opposite request of its own: cutting the existing 7.2 percent tariff to zero on certain insecticides sold in packages of up to 7.5 kilograms, including products such as bifenthrin, chlorfenapyr, deltamethrin and lambda-cyhalothrin. The advisory committee backed Aenda’s proposal, while Sindiveg, CropLife Brasil, Unifito and Abifina voted against it.

Import data underpins the dispute

Camex’s Committee on Tariff Changes was scheduled to take up Aenda’s request on November 10. If its members do not reach unanimous agreement, the matter moves to Gecex, Camex’s executive management group, for a final decision on both the tariff cut Aenda wants and the broader increases sought by Sindiveg and Abifina.

The scale of the trade at stake is substantial. Brazil imported 2.79 billion dollars worth of pesticides in the product categories covered by the various tariff requests between January and September this year. Of that total, 1.36 billion dollars, or nearly half, came from China. Current general import duties on the affected products range from 7.2 to 12.6 percent, and some products already enter Brazil duty free under existing exemptions.

The fight over tariffs has exposed a split within Brazil’s own crop protection sector that goes beyond the vote itself. Two Sindiveg members, Tecnomyl and Alta, withdrew from the association after disagreeing with its campaign to raise tariffs on Chinese generic products, a sign that not every domestic formulator supports the push for higher import barriers even as the broader 35 percent request from Sindiveg continues to await a decision from Camex.

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