BRASILIA-– Brazil’s environment and agriculture ministers yesterday criticized President-elect Jair Bolsonaro’s plans to merge their departments, saying it would hurt the country’s agenda on both fronts.

Bolsonaro has pledged to roughly halve the number of existing ministries in an effort to reduce bureaucracy and government bloat. He also vowed to merge the planning, finance and industry ministries into one super ministry. Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi said in a statement he is against the proposed merger. The move would cause losses to the country’s farm trade as European countries – key importers of Brazilian agricultural products – have pushed Brazil to protect the environment, he said.

Maggi said the environmental ministry’s portfolio includes areas that deal with energy, infrastructure and a wide variety of subjects that do not fit with the agriculture ministry’s mandate. “How will a minister of agriculture comment on an oil field or mineral exploration?” the statement quoted him as saying. Earlier in the day, Environment Minister Edson Duarte said that he was surprised and concerned by the announcement of the plan to combine the portfolios.(Reuters)…[+]