Brazil Bioinputs Law decree could speed key Ibama approvals as reviews hit 6 months

Brazil’s environmental regulator Ibama says approvals of biological crop protection products will get faster, not slower, once the government publishes the decree implementing the Brazil Bioinputs Law, AgFeed reported on October 5.

The decree remains with the presidential Casa Civil and has not appeared in the official gazette. Some farm groups and bioinput companies fear it will give Ibama and health regulator Anvisa a bigger role and slow approvals.

Ibama officials rejected that view. Rosangela Muniz, Ibama’s director of environmental quality, said the agency only reviews bioinputs used against pests and diseases, not fertilizers or a proposed “biomineral” category of microbe-enhanced fertilizers. Reviews take about six months on average, half the one-year legal limit, said Alan Alves Ferro, Ibama’s general coordinator for chemical substance assessment.

Ibama analyzed 167 bioinput requests in 2025, up 74% from 96 in 2021, and says there is practically no backlog. Muniz said dossier costs in Brazil are about 30 times lower than in the United States or Europe. Once the decree takes effect, Ibama expects to review only new products, though it insists on strain-level assessment, in line with Anvisa.

On-farm production for a farmer’s own use is exempt from registration and fees under Law 15,070, but selling those products requires registration. The pending decree has also held back regulatory clearance for products such as Mosaic’s first Latin American biological in Brazil.

Source: AgFeed