Photographer chronicles 10 years of Argentina’s fumigated fields

• By
  Silvia Higuera

• May 12, 2026

The first time photographer Pablo Piovano started documenting the reported results of agrochemicals in Argentina was in 2014. At the time, he was working as a photojournalist for the media outlet Página 12 and had gone to cowl a convention led by the Network of Physicians in Fumigated Towns. The group was one of many few voices talking out towards — although with little influence — the consequences of chemical fumigation on youngsters and communities underneath their care.

At the congress, Piovano listened to a rural instructor recount how the college the place she labored was fumigated and the way the kids suffered each bodily and emotionally.

“What she said was so compelling that I wanted to go see her in Entre Ríos,” Piovano informed LatAm Journalism Review (LJR).

The first journey he took was to a location 249 miles from his residence in Buenos Aires—particularly, to the house of Fabián Tomasi. Tomasi is regarded—not solely in Argentina however worldwide—as one of the foremost activists against the use of agrochemicals. In 2005, Tomasi labored for an aerial fumigation firm, opening containers of chemical compounds and mixing them with water to provide the plane tasked with spraying the soybean fields. He was identified with extreme poisonous polyneuropathy, a situation that finally took his life in 2018.

“Fabián gave his life, his body—a body deeply ravaged; his appearance recalled Nazi concentration camps,” Piovano mentioned. “And in a way, the Argentine fields are extermination camps, with their massive use of chemicals.”

Pictured right here in Entre Ríos, Argentina, Fabián Tomasi was “a global symbol of the fight against agrochemicals,” as reported by photojournalist Pablo Piovano. (Photo: Pablo Piovano)

Using his personal assets and driving his personal automotive, Piovano spent his month-long trip touring at the least 932 miles by varied cities, the place he encountered “a very grim reality.” Piovano was deeply shaken by the bedridden youngsters and the various circumstances of most cancers affecting each youngsters and adults. Everyone he spoke with, he mentioned, agreed on one factor: they had been situated proper subsequent to agricultural fields.

This marked the start of a journey spanning almost ten years —Piovano returned to the location for the final time simply final 12 months— throughout which a whole bunch of households opened their doorways to him in order that he may {photograph} those that mentioned they had been instantly affected by chemical compounds used to spray the fields; work that, this 12 months, earned him a World Press Photo award in the Long-Term Projects class for South America.

“What happens with these stories in which pain appears — which is not our pain, but the pain of another […] — is that, over time, there is a learning process for walking along a very fine line, where it is necessary to have a certain composure […] so as not to break. But, at the same time, it is necessary to have sensitivity in order to tell with dignity everything that is shown to us,” Piovano mentioned. “The most private parts of a person are being opened to us.”

Images as symbols of resistance

Argentina’s agricultural manufacturing underwent a change in 1996, when the country approved its first transgenic crop: soybeans immune to the herbicide glyphosate. The approval course of in Congress has lengthy been marred by allegations of irregularities—similar to the truth that the controversy befell within the early hours of the morning, or that paperwork submitted in English by firms, similar to Nidera and Monsanto, asserted that glyphosate was innocent, Piovano mentioned. In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is a part of the World Health Organization, labeled glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” The herbicide has even been banned or restricted in some locations; nevertheless, it is approved for use in lots of international locations. Yet, it is only one agrochemical under scrutiny all over the world.

By 2022, Argentina led the world in the usage of agrochemicals. According to figures from Argentina’s National Institute of Agricultural Technology —revealed by Sudestada— 580 million liters of agrochemicals were dumped annually throughout the nation’s territories and populations. This implies that almost 13 liters of agrochemicals are utilized per inhabitant annually.

Photojournalist Pablo Piovano paperwork Argentine mom Cándida Rodríguez together with her son, Fabián Piris, who has hydrocephalus. While she was pregnant, Cándida dealt with agrochemicals on tobacco plantations, a apply linked to elevated charges of beginning defects. Piovano reported that alongside National Route 14, communities surrounded by intensive agricultural spraying recorded greater than 1,200 circumstances of beginning defects. (Photo: Pablo Piovano)

When he returned to Buenos Aires after that first journey, Piovano discovered little or no house in media to publish his pictures—and, extra typically, to report the consequences that agrochemicals had been having on folks.

In 2014, the subject couldn’t be discovered in lots of media shops. The photographs Piovano had taken weighed closely on him. So, with a view to get them revealed, he sought an preliminary grant that enabled him to return to the countryside. He then secured an invite to a competition in Italy to showcase his photographs.

From that time on —and now as a freelancer— Piovano has devoted himself to the topic. For  simply over seven years, he’s traveled continuously alongside the well-known Route 14, which stretches from Buenos Aires all the way in which to Misiones, almost reaching the border with Brazil. He has acquired varied accolades—similar to these from the Philip Jones Griffiths Foundation and the Manuel Rivera Ortiz Foundation—which, in flip, have sustained this work. In 2017, he revealed the guide “El costo humano de los agrotóxicos” (The human price of agrotoxins) and has held varied exhibitions in international locations similar to Argentina and Mexico.

He mentioned monitoring agrochemicals has at all times gone hand in hand with different disciplines—similar to science and, in fact, medical professionals, who “had to take on the role of whistleblowers before journalists did.” However, he clarifies that he was not the primary to cowl this subject, as many colleagues have been monitoring it for years.

The energy of bearing witness

World Press Photo acknowledged Argentine photographer Pablo Piovano for his work documenting results of agrochemicals. (Photo: Sebastian Belaustegui)

The change, Piovano mentioned, lies in the truth that there may be now more room for media—he himself has revealed in shops similar to Rolling Stone—and that the topic is at the least being mentioned.

“I cannot unsee that,” said Kira Pollack, international jury chair of World Press Photo, relating to Piovano’s story. “It has such a strong signature it’s the kind of thing that inspires you to want to make pictures.”

Piovano—who has been working in parallel on different initiatives pushed by his video manufacturing firm, Lawen—says he believes his work must be out there to anybody who wants it. In explicit, he strives for it to be helpful. In reality, each time he begins a brand new venture, he asks himself what contribution it could possibly make.

“Because, in a sense, we chronicle an era and a specific stage in the life of a region. In this instance, we speak of the Argentine countryside—a place steeped in history—which is currently undergoing a transformation in its productive model that has shifted many things, not least the health of its people,” he mentioned.

He extremely values ​​the latest World Press Photo recognition—having already won one in 2024 for his work with Mapuche Indigenous peoples—relating to it because the skilled recognition that it’s.

Nevertheless, the best worth lies within the communities themselves appropriating his work – for instance, when he sees his pictures featured on banners at protests, and even inside Congress throughout votes on the problem.

“When an image can become a symbol of resistance, or help awaken awareness, for me, that is a sign of victory,” Piovano mentioned.

This article was translated with AI help and reviewed by Teresa Mioli