Public Eye and Unearthed obtained data from the market analysis company Phillips McDougall, which detail 23.3 billion dollars of agricultural pesticide sales in 2018, or approximately 40% of the world market. We analysed the data using the list of highly hazardous pesticides established by the Pesticide Action Network (PAN). The results show that the German companies Bayer and BASF, the American Corteva and FMC and the Swiss Syngenta together made 35% of their sales income from pesticides that pose the highest levels of risk to health or the environment...

Our analysis also shows that developing and emerging countries are the privileged playing fields of these multinationals, who make nearly 60% of their sales of highly hazardous pesticides in such countries. The firms take advantage of the weakness of regulations in countries like Brazil and India to continue selling substances that are banned in the European Union and in Switzerland. Whereas such chemicals cannot be used safely, especially in such contexts...

Switzerland and the other countries that host these firms should enact strict measures to guarantee that the companies respect human rights and the environment in all the countries where they operate.