CAMPESINOS FIGHT AGAINST GM SOY — PARAGUAY

9.10.2008
Farm­ers occu­py large Brazil­ian-owned farms to block the entry of genet­i­cal­ly-mod­i­fied soy.

Campesinos in the depart­ment of San Pedro occu­pied Brazil­ian-owned farms on Oct. 1 to block the entry of trans­genic soy, and began plant­i­ng oth­er crops such as sesame and yuc­ca on the plots.

Biohazard (red)9.10.2008
Farm­ers occu­py large Brazil­ian-owned farms to block the entry of genet­i­cal­ly-mod­i­fied soy.

Campesinos in the depart­ment of San Pedro occu­pied Brazil­ian-owned farms on Oct. 1 to block the entry of trans­genic soy, and began plant­i­ng oth­er crops such as sesame and yuc­ca on the plots.

Some 120 campesinos occu­pied two 600-hectare (1,480 acre) farms, accord­ing to local media reports.

Cristi­no Per­al­ta, the San Pedro cor­re­spon­dent of the dai­ly ABC Col­or, said that the farm­ers imme­di­ate­ly began plant­i­ng the sesame and yuc­ca after occu­py­ing the plan­ta­tions.

”There was no law enforce­ment inter­ven­tion,” he said. ”The group´s leader Flo­ren­cio Martínez said that the occu­pa­tion marked the start of the recov­ery of Paraguayan ter­ri­to­r­i­al sov­er­eign­ty.”

San Pedro is con­sid­ered Paraguay´s best farm­land, but it is also the country´s poor­est depart­ment. Pres­i­dent Fer­nan­do Lugo worked as a bish­op there for a decade.

Land is con­cen­trat­ed in the fewest hands in Paraguay than in any oth­er Latin Amer­i­can coun­try. Only 351 landown­ers hold 9.7 mil­lion hectares (24 mil­lion acres), while, accord­ing to civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions, there are more than 350,000 fam­i­lies with insuf­fi­cient quan­ti­ties of land or no land at all.

The demon­stra­tors said that they took over the Brazil­ian-owned plan­ta­tions in protest of what they called the government´s fail­ure to imple­ment land reform. Paraguay has also seen oth­er campesino protests against trans­genic soy plan­ta­tions and the indis­crim­i­nate use of farm­ing chem­i­cals.

Lugo had request­ed that the campesinos give his gov­ern­ment 100 days start­ing Aug. 15 to seek financ­ing for land reform. The peri­od ends on Nov. 22.

Accord­ing to campesino leader Elvio Benítez, the gov­ern­ment ”con­tin­ues with­out find­ing a solu­tion to the lack of land of thou­sands of our com­pa­tri­ots, while the Brazil­ians´ pres­ence is get­ting big­ger and big­ger. We can´t do any­thing else but occu­py the Brazil­ian-owned hacien­das because the soy crops are caus­ing defor­esta­tion, elim­i­nat­ing nat­ur­al forests and con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing peo­ple with its pes­ti­cides.”