Sanchez made reference to the campaign against monoculture plantations carried out by FoE Argentina in Misiones, Corrientes and Entre Ríos provinces, where the extensive model “displaces communities, pollutes the environment and affects peoples’ health”.

“Soy was almost non-existent in Argentina in the 70s and nearly 40 years later there are 20 million hectares of soy planted in the country, which represent almost 60 per cent of the surface destined to agriculture”, said Sanchez, who believes that “raising the barriers” of fumigating licenses is not enough.

Friends of the Earth Argentina claims that the area of the River Plate basin concentrates 85% of the country’s forestation, a situation that its promoters aim to disguise as ’cultivated forests’.

“They want us to believe that forests planted in line, of the same age, that are later used for logging and pulp production, are forests. So to the eyes of many these are nice trees they are planting in the area. We are saying that this plantation is not a forest”, said Sanchez. He then informed that Corrientes’ forested area is already higher than Misiones’.

As regards to the impacts of fumigations, he mentioned the recent case of an employee of Alto Parana who died as a result of working on agrotoxic production.

Sanchez also mentioned other situations caused by the advance of this model. “They are now using a new verb, they talk about ’randapear’ (in Spanish), it’s as if the action of fumigating, of using glyphosate and its commercial name has become normal”.

Photo: www.amigos.org.ar