25th July 2006 - GM Soy Expansion and Human and Environmental Rights Violations

European supermarkets and Brazil
This is an extract from The Guardian 24July, 2006, ‘Food giants to boycott illegal Amazon soya’ by Felicity Lawrence and John Vidal.

 “Leading European supermarkets, food manufacturers and fast-food chains, including McDonald's, are expected to pledge not to use soya illegally grown in the Amazon region in response to evidence that large areas of virgin forest are being felled for the crop.

The companies say they will not deal with the 4 trading giants who dominate production in Brazil unless they can show they are not sourcing soya from areas being farmed illegally. The deal has been brokered by Greenpeace which, in an investigation earlier this year, linked the illegal destruction of the forest to large-scale soya farming financed by US-based commodity multinationals Cargill, ADM and Bunge.

Investigators say that they spent three years tracing the movement of soya from illegal plantations in the Amazon through the US-based firms to chicken factories in European countries including Britain. The Amazon-grown soya was found to be going into the supply chain of McDonald's, KFC, Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons and Unilever.
Where rainforest has already been cleared and land used illegally, the companies are expected to negotiate new systems to ensure farmers start complying with Brazilian law.

Father Edilberto Sena, director of the Catholic radio station in the Amazon region and a leading protester against soya farming, said the deal was "a good start". "It's not a solution to the problem," he said. "Between 60,000 and 80,000 hectares [150,000-200,000 acres] of land in our region has already been destroyed ... To restore the forest and enforce this will require huge investment."

The soya bean has been grown in China and used in different ways for thousands of years but almost half the world's production is now in the US, which produces 70m tonnes a year. Other leading producers are Argentina, China, India and, increasingly, Brazil, which is expected to overtake US output within a few years. The bulk of the crop is solvent extracted for vegetable oil, with soya meal used for animal feed. A tiny proportion is consumed directly as human food. Apart from foods, soya beans are now used in industrial products such as oils, soap, cosmetics, resins, plastics, inks, crayons, solvents, vodka and biodiesel. Clearing land for industrial soya farming is taking over from timber as the major driver of forest loss in some regions." (...end of extract)

Paraguay
A report published this year; Paraguay Sojero (Soy producer Paraguay) includes details of a violent campaign against rural and indigenous communities in Paraguay, strongly related to the expansion of GM soy production. The report was launched at the UN Biodiversity Summit by Grupo de Reflexion Rural (Argentina) on Monday 20 March 2006. At the same time, two other publications dealing with GM soy expansion, in Paraguay and Brazil, were presented.

“The aim of the report is to expose the reality of the agroexport model that is dictated by the neoliberal ideology promoted by wealthy nations, and adopted by national governments of the South. This report provides detailed examples of the people whose lives and environments are being destroyed by the advancement of ‘green deserts’ like soy, but who are still resisting and fighting for their way of live…” (Paraguay Sojero, 2006: p.4).

The expansion of soy monocultures are often linked to violent evictions and intensive fumigations with agrochemicals. Some environmental effects of this are intoxication of people and animals, destruction of harvests and contamination of water sources. Additionally, several traditional staple food crops like cassava, maize, sweet potatoes and beans, are replaced by soy. “Green” products that are produced locally are exported instead of sold and consumed locally, and this is supported by NGOs and aid agencies.

Drawing of Yisili Acanda Gonzalez as a reaction on the death of
Silvino caused by fumigation of agrotoxics.
 (Paraguay Sojero, 2006: p.8)

Similar situations take place around the world, for example the expansion of eucalyptus and pine plantations in Chile and Brazil (see WWF’s fact sheet, Tissue is an issue for nature) and palm oil plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia (see Friends of the Earth’s case study Palm oil - rainforest in your shopping.)

Notes: the report (Semino, Rulli and Joensen, 2006, Paraguay Sojero, GRR, Argentina) is written by: Javiera Rulli (javierarulli@yahoo.com), Stella Semino (stella.semino@mail.dk) and Lilian Joensen (lilianj16@yahoo.com).