Agriculture and pesticide regulation in Latin America: A comparative dataset with the European Union

Abstract

Dataset listing the active ingredients approved as of 31 December 2020 in eight Latin American countries evaluated for 10 major crops, together with their legal status in the European Union, chemical identifiers (CAS number, IUPAC name), and primary target organism. The dataset was generated collaboratively by 20 members of the Sociedad Latinoamericana de Investigación en Abejas (SOLATINA, https://solatina.org/) as part of the working group Impacto antrópico. It includes five tables as CSV files covering complementary aspects of agricultural production and pesticide regulation. Table S1 provides national-level agricultural context, including mean land and cultivated areas (2015–2019), the percentage of cultivated land, agricultural contribution to GDP, and each country’s share of total cultivated land and primary production in Latin America. Table S2 compiles crop-level information such as harvested area in 2019, gross production and export values (2016–2020), and each crop’s relative importance within national agricultural systems. Table S3 lists pesticide active ingredients approved in each country, with details on their common and IUPAC names, CAS numbers, EU approval status under Directive EC 1107/2009, expiry information, WHO classification, source, category, and crop-specific registrations. Table S4 compiles active ingredients banned in the region, indicating inclusion in international conventions (Montreal, Rotterdam, Stockholm), WHO classification, EU regulatory status, and national bans by country. Finally, Table S5 contains aggregated variables used for generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs), including country, crop, number of pesticides, approval status in the EU, pollination mode, crop presence in the EU, mean export value, and mean production. It also includes three TXT files as support for plotting. This dataset enables cross-regional analyses of agricultural production and pesticide regulation, highlighting regulatory alignment and disparities between Latin America and the European Union. The repository also includes the R scripts used to analyze all the data and generate all figures asociated to a scientific publication.