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Argentina's Food Farmers Trumped by Soy
By: PulsoLatino
Posted: Sep 3 09
Witnessed: 1185 times
Regions: Argentina
Issues: Environment, Food & health & development, Health, Indigenous peoples, Minorities, Poverty, Sustainable development
Tags: agriculture, alternative fuel, biofuel, corporations, herbicides, land, monsanto, pesticides, soy
September 1st, 2009
In this episode of Latin Pulse we focus on the struggle between Argentine food farmers and transnational soy producers. The soy producers bribe landowners and buy lands inhabited by indigenous tribes such as the Toba, Mocoví and Wichí among others, and bulldoze the forest to plant Monsanto soy.
We explore the destruction of the Chaco forest of South America with a documentary from Argentine filmmaker Alejandro Mouján. The destruction of the Amazons are well known, but one of South America's other biodiversity centers and it's second largest forest, El Chaco, is also in danger. In an original Link interview preceding the documentary, local human rights lawyer Rolando Núñez tells us that the soy struggle may be the closing act in the slow extermination of El Chaco's indigenous tribes.
After the forest has been bulldozed, the land is bathed in Monsanto "Roundup" herbicide, and the Roundup-ready soy is planted, harvested and exported to feed pigs, cows and make biofuels in both China and the U.S. The heavy use of herbicides and pesticides is causing alarming rates of disease and deformities in the surrounding communities, however, the profit margins compel Argentina's farmers to grow the exported crop on lands where Argentina's food stuffs once grew.
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