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Latin Pulse is a half-hour news magazine examining Latin American issues relevant to the American public, as presented by newscasts and reports from different Latin American countries. Latin Pulse fills the journalistic vacuum of Latin American news for English speakers, with programs featuring critical current affairs coverage of the region, including exclusive interviews, news, and cultural content.

 

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Argentina's Food Farmers Trumped by Soy

Argentina's Food Farmers Trumped by Soy

(Latin Pulse: September 1, 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 Fernández 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 US. 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.

Learn more about this issue and find out what you can do!

Related Articles:

Monsanto Soy Herbicide Could Pose Health Risks
Study Released in Argentina Puts Glyphosate Under Fire
By Marie Trigona
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6254

Argentina: Expansion of Agricultural Frontier Endangers Native Communities
By Marcela Valente
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39087

Change on the Pampas: Industrialized Farming Comes to Argentina
By Nick Kusnetz
https://nacla.org/node/6079

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