Public Eye released a report claiming that up to 50 farmers may have been fatally poisoned between July and October 2017 due to excess use of Syngenta’s Polo insecticide to control white flies in cotton. The pesticide contains the chemical diafenthiuron that is produced by the company in Switzerland...

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) states that diafenthiuron is “toxic if inhaled”...

“We strongly condemn the various salacious and incorrect reports alleging that our crop protection product Polo was responsible for the unfortunate incidents. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that Syngenta’s product Polo, was at all responsible for the incidents that have occurred,” said Syngenta... 

The company warned that local formulations were sometime marketed as Polo and said that it had set up mobile health clinics to treat affected farmers... 

It is not clear at this stage if Syngenta-produced diafenthiuron is the sole reason for the farmers’ deaths. A report published at the behest of the Chief Minister of Maharashtra placed the blame on several factors... 

Syngenta India told Public Eye that Polo had been successfully used by farmers across the country for the last 14 years without any reported incidents of fatal casualties. With regard to the export of chemicals banned in Switzerland and Europe, the company told Swiss public television SRF that it was standard practice. 

“It is often the case that a plant/crop protection product is registered in one country and not another – due to different regulatory criteria, climatic and agronomic conditions, or different needs of farmers,” the company stated.