The advertising department of Swiss agribusiness giant Syngenta was on a roll in early 2004 when it published a map that dubbed a large area of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay the \u201cUnited Republic of Soy\u201d.<\/p>\n
In this \u201crepublic\u201d more than 46 million hectares of transgenic soy are sprayed with 600 million litres of the herbicide glyphosate and are largely responsible for the deforestation of 500,000 hectares a year in the past decade, according to estimates by the international non-profit organisation GRAIN<\/a>.<\/p>\n The expansion of agricultural biotechnology in South America has occurred under governments described as progressive, and has fuelled a debate between those who see it as scientific and economic progress and those who stress the social, environmental and political damage caused.<\/p>\n According to GRAIN, global biotech corporations stepped up their campaign to spread transgenic or genetically modified (GM) seeds in 2012, when most of the Southern Cone countries had governments that were critical of neoliberal policies and that were in favour of a state that played a strong role with respect to social, educational, health and economic questions.<\/p>\n The two agricultural powerhouses in the region, Argentina and Brazil, are now among the world\u2019s leaders in GM crops, which require large amounts of pesticides and herbicides.<\/p>\n This has to do with \u201cthe blind belief among progressive sectors in scientific and technological advances as providers of well-being and progress,\u201d GRAIN Latin America spokesman Carlos Vicente told Tierram\u00e9rica.<\/p>\n \u201cThe corporate power behind GM crops is not questioned, and the socioenvironmental impacts are not analysed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n There is also an element of \u201cpragmatism,\u201d he said, referring to \u201cthe alliance with agribusiness to maintain governability,\u201d especially in Argentina, where taxes on the enormous exports of soy \u201care a major source of revenue for the state,\u201d Vicente said.<\/p>\n Paradoxically, these earnings help finance \u201cthe social programmes that provide assistance to those who are expelled by the agribusiness model,\u201d added the spokesman for GRAIN, an international NGO that promotes food security and works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems.<\/p>\n In Argentina, the U.S. biotech corporation Monsanto<\/a> controls 86 percent of the market for transgenic seeds, and is the company that generates the most noise. But others are quietly advancing, like Syngenta, Ra\u00fal Montenegro, the head of the Environmental Defence Foundation<\/a> (FUNAM), told Tierram\u00e9rica.<\/p>\n In his view, the struggle against the construction of a plant to process transgenic corn seed in Malvinas Argentinas, a poor community east of the capital of the central Argentine province of C\u00f3rdoba, prompted other corporations to keep a low profile and \u201cavoid announcing the location of their future installations.\u201d<\/p>\n On the list, Vicente includes other companies that control millions of hectares, such as Germany\u2019s Bayer and BASF, the U.S. Cargill, Switzerland\u2019s Nestl\u00e9, and the Argentina-based Bunge.<\/p>\n Syngenta<\/a> did not respond to Tierram\u00e9rica\u2019s request for an interview. But its communiqu\u00e9s are clear enough.<\/p>\n In a statement on its 2013 fiscal results that says Latin America is spearheading Syngenta\u2019s growth, the company stressed that its 14.68 billion dollars in revenue were driven by seven percent growth in Latin America and six percent growth in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region. In North America, meanwhile, sales fell two percent.<\/p>\n The strong performance in Latin America was driven by Brazil, where \u201cSyngenta\u2019s expanding soybean seed portfolio registered significant gains with the launch of new varieties,\u201d said the company\u2019s Chief Executive Officer Mike Mack.<\/p>\n These corporations make their profits at the cost of an increase in health and environmental problems caused by pesticides, the displacement of small farmers and indigenous people, and the growing concentration of property ownership, said Vicente.<\/p>\n But, he added, these are only seen as \u201ccollateral damage\u201d by the governments of \u201cthe United Republic of Soy.\u201d<\/p>\n In Argentina, President Cristina Fern\u00e1ndez and her ministers \u201crepeat ad nauseam that \u2018we produce food for 400 million people\u2019 when what we actually produce are 55 million tonnes of soy bean forage,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Enrique Mart\u00ednez, former president of the National Institute of Industrial Technology (INTI), reminded Tierram\u00e9rica of Monsanto\u2019s lobbying for a law on seeds<\/a> \u201cthat would validate not only patents on species but also the charging of royalties and the regulation of ownership of harvested seeds.\u201d<\/p>\n Mart\u00ednez, head of the Evita Movement\u2019s Institute for Popular Production<\/a>, said he believes the law won\u2019t be approved, due to the pressure of public opinion.<\/p>\n In his opinion, the government does not defend an agricultural model based on transgenics. \u201cWhat it does is argue that the market works well in automatic terms, based on the supposition that productivity improves in a systematic manner, and that this benefits the community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n But that logic \u201cis not correct,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need studies that show that Monsanto has appropriated the majority of the immediate economic benefits, turning farmers into simple hostages of this scheme.\u201d<\/p>\n He added, however, that \u201cbiotechnology should not be reviled as the cause of our problems.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is a sectarian way of looking at things,\u201d he said. What is needed, he argued, is \u201cthe democratisation of knowledge and know-how, to enable an expansion of the actors so that production is not concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.\u201d<\/p>\n Environmental questions \u201care only one aspect,\u201d he said. \u201cThe key is the construction of value chains that depend on the decisions of a corporation. That is what must be fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n Economist Jo\u00e3o Pedro St\u00e9dile, a leader of the La V\u00eda Campesina global peasant movement and Brazil\u2019s Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), said the phenomenon did not reflect an ideological contradiction on the part of progressive governments.<\/p>\n \u201cThe movement of capital over agriculture to impose a dominant model based on monoculture, transgenic seeds and toxic agrochemicals has its own logic that does not depend on governments,\u201d St\u00e9dile told Tierram\u00e9rica.<\/p>\n Governments \u201cfool themselves\u201d because of the volume of production and the positive trade balance that this agribusiness model provides, but it does not generate development or distribute wealth, he argued.<\/p>\n Of the 70 million hectares of land under cultivation in Brazil, 88 percent is dedicated to soy, maize, sugar cane and eucalyptus, he pointed out. \u201cSo naturally social problems and protests against that model without a future are going to increase,\u201d St\u00e9dile said.<\/p>\n And biotech companies know that.<\/p>\n The vice president of Monsanto Argentina, Pablo Vaquero, warned in March that the conflict that has blocked construction of a plant near the city of C\u00f3rdoba in central Argentina \u201cis a threat to the entire productive model.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cToday they come out against Monsanto, but it is an excuse to attack the entire sector,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Vicente says a broad debate on these issues is still needed.<\/p>\n But he stressed achievements such as the blocking of the seeds law in Argentina, restrictions on spraying in some municipalities, and the awareness raised by the National Campaign Against Agrotoxics and for Life<\/a>.<\/p>\n ***************<\/p>\n Concentrated soy: – Uruguay \u2013 2010: 26 percent of producers controlled 85 percent of soybean land.<\/p>\n – Brazil \u2013 2006: 5 percent of soybean growers occupied 59 percent of soybean land.<\/p>\n – Paraguay \u2013 2005: 4 percent of soybean growers occupied 60 percent of soybean land.<\/p>\n Source: GRAIN<\/p>\n \u00a0**************<\/em><\/p>\n Rural exodus Brazil: Starting in the 1970s, soy production displaced 2.5 million people in the state of Paran\u00e1 and 300,000 in the state of Rio Grande do Sul.<\/p>\n Paraguay: The push by big soy producers to control 4 million hectares of land has displaced 143,000 peasant families – more than half the farms under 20 hectares recorded in the agricultural census of 1991.<\/p>\n Source: GRAIN<\/p>\n _______________________________<\/p>\n This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierram\u00e9rica network.<\/em><\/p>\n Related IPS Articles<\/strong><\/p>\n
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\n– Argentina \u2013 2010: 3 percent of producers controlled over 50 percent of soybean production.<\/em><\/p>\n
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\nArgentina: By 2007 the agribusiness model had expelled more than 200,000 farmers and their families from the land.<\/em><\/p>\n