The end of days

ARE WE SURPRISED ! WHY! MONSANTO WILL TAKE AMERICAs RIGHT TO BACK YARD GARDENS OR SMALL FARMERS SELLING FRUIT SIDE OF THE ROAD CORPORATE DICTATORSHIP RULES YOUR LIFE BRAZIL OR USA HA HA PROFITS BEFORE PEOPLE INDEX FINGER TO MONSANTO POPULATION CONTROL FREAKS!MONSANTO THE SOIL?GROUND COCA COLA THE WORLD WATER SUPPLY AND BOEING THE CHEM?TRAILS AIR POLLUTION
NO ROOM FOR HUMANS!

Coming to a deforested field near you:

The true cost of monoculture:

15 years of GM soybeans in Argentina

http://www.mo.be/en/article/15-years-gm-soybeans-argentina

*Intoxication, massive clearing, loss of biodiversity, forced evictions, land concentration and murder. The dark sides of 15 years of soy monoculture, a model driven by businesses and governments.

The only scientific evidence for the approval of GM soy in Argentina were research data provided by Monsanto. Monsanto produces both soy seed as well as the herbicide Roundup (glyphosate), a product that GM soy has been made resistant to. The 'scientific' dossier with data on Roundup Ready soy's safety counts only 146 pages. The approval took place in record time: 81 days during the summer of 1996. Since then, RoundupReady soy is cultivated on a large scale - and the use of Roundup has also increased exponentially.

On Monday the 21st of March 2011, four days before the fifteenth anniversary of the approval, the Argentine Ministry of Agriculture sent out a press release that had been long-awaited by agribusiness: "The 2010/2011 grain harvest exceeds the magic limit of 100 million tonnes." For years, it had been the dream of pesticide producers, grain traders, soy producers and the Ministry's civil servants to reach this milestone. Today soy represents half of this harvest, 50 million tonnes. The surface cultivated with soy has increased from 6 to 19 million hectares, which represents 56 percent of the cultivated area in Argentina.

Soy exports have an annual return of 16,000 million dollars, but there are also other, less widespread consequences: 190 million liters of glyphosate are sprayed and there is an exponential increase in deforestation. 200,000 families were driven from their territories and there are conflicts over eight million hectares between soy producers on one side and peasants and indigenous peoples on the other. However, this production model is promoted as an economic success, and now even as "responsible".

The Soy Economy: Profits for the few

This economic model is extremely dependent on soy production. The model is driven by large companies and transnational corporations that form an 'agribusiness system’". A large part of this model is controlled by a small number of companies and individuals", explain Miguel Teubal and Thomas Palmisano in their book on the large influence of the soy sector on Argentine economy and politics . These are export companies such as Cargill and ADM, big soy producers like Grupo Los Grobo, seed companies as Monsanto and Syngenta, and investment groups called "sowing pools".

Based on data from the Ministry of Agriculture, the economists provide precise figures on soy as an economic phenomenon: between 1997 and 2008 exports increased from $3.2 billion to $16.3 billion. The researchers point out that a handful of companies account for 85 percent of the business: Cargill, Noble Argentina, ADM, Bunge, LDC-Dreyfus, AC Toepfer, Nidera, Molinos Rio de la Plata, AGD and Vicentín.

"It was very convenient for the government to promote the soy model, because it improved the trade balance as well as tax collection, very necessary to meet external debt payment obligations", stated Teubal and Palmisano. A large conflict on soy export taxes arose between the government and "el campo" (that is: agribusiness). But both conflicting parties had high interests in maintaining the soy model, which therefore remained untouched.

On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, in the European Union, more than 40 million tonnes of RoundupReady soy is annually imported from Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. This has been made very attractive because of an import tax of 0%, a result of historic trade negotiations between the USA and the EU. Cheap soy is mainly intended for factory farming. European and foreign markets are inundated by cheap meat, eggs and milk, which directly affects small farmers. Furthermore, factory farming causes severe environmental pollution.

Toxic rain

Scientific evidence is strong and consistent enough to recognize that exposure to pesticides increases the risk of an adverse impact on human health," states the final declaration of the First Meeting of Doctors of 'Pueblos Fumigados' (sprayed villages), organized by Córdoba's National University (UNC) in August 2010. This was the first time that a state university organized such a meeting. Molecular biologists, geneticists, epidemiologists, endocrinologists, and other medical specialists from ten provinces and six universities presented their work during two days. These experts linked the use of agrochemicals with different types of cancer, spontaneous abortions, birth defects and fertility problems through national and international research, and patient medical records.

They recalled that Argentina uses 300 million liters of chemicals each year, which is estimated to have a direct negative impact on 12 million people. They demanded that the national government ban aerial spraying and restrict ground spraying, and called for urgent implementation of the precautionary principle which is contained in Argentine law. This means that in case of possible environmental damage protective measures should be taken.

cont. at the link