resources

Land use and soy expansion

*NEW Cliff Welch on the soy economy in Paraguay Interview with professor Welch about the plans to turn the department of San Pedro into a purely soy region. Soy is needed in Europe and China as fodder, and for agrofuel. But it creates a total disaster in San Pedro and elsewhere.

Land reform
*Latin American intellectuals about land reform

*NEW (in Spanish) Manifestation against soy intrusion in Mariscal Lopez. Report on the manifestation on November 12th to denounce the illegal fumigations in the area. Mariscal Lopez is a colony in Caaguazú, and greatly suffers from the expansion of soy fields in the community over the past years. But the people there are convicted to keep their community livable.

*NEW Elderly people in Tekojoja. This is a testimony of people living next to a soy field of the mayor of Vaqueria, who is also a soy farmer. The old man and woman are immobile because of their age, and suffer the regular poisonous fumigations with bitterness and anger. The mayor from his part, is bluntly denying the existence of intoxications in Paraguay.

On August 15, 2008, Fernando Lugo was officially and formally inaugurated as president of Paraguay. In his inaugural speech, he clearly positioned himself on the side of the socially weak and excluded. The following day he traveled with the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez to the inauguration of Jose Ledesma 'Pakova' (Guarani for banana since Jose is a banana grower), a long-standing political ally of Lugo's, as the new governor of San Pedro, a department which has dealt with many land conflicts.

bandera soja mata We compiled a DVD with various materials of the site like action clips, reports, pictures, etc....

Below you get an overview of it's content with the links where to find everything (so you can start compiling it yourself) but if you rather have it posted to you
send us an email if you would like to order one or more, we only ask you to pay the sending costs....

lasojamata [at] aseed.net

Solidarity with campesino struggle in Belgium:

17th of April 2008, international day of peasant struggle... the blockade lasted all day long and was the initiative of activists of SEVEN European countries. Más: lasojamata.org/en/node/135

A critical discussion on the sustainability of agrofuels, and on current attempts by the EU and EU member states to develop criteria to guarantee that sustainability.
Click to download the report "Paving the way for agrofuels
Click para bajar en Castellano

The report concludes that current initiatives are bound to fail, and merely serve to legitimise the 10% agrofuel target that is being proposed. The EU itself only talks about criteria on two issues. The discussion in member states like the UK and the Netherlands is very focused on existing voluntary certification initiatives such as the Forest Stewardship Council, the Round Table on Sustainable Palmoil and the Round Table on Responsible Soy, but ignores the criticism on these schemes regarding effectiveness and whose interests are being represented.

The Round Table on Responsible Soy is seeking to legitimise irresponsible, socially and environmentally damaging soy production, according to a new report published today (Tuesday 22 April) ahead of the Round Table on Responsible Soy’s third conference in Buenos Aires.

Islands surrounded by land. Ben Brown and Jessica Weisberg are editing a documentary about the social impacts of soy expansion in Paraguay. They follow the mother of a ten year old boy Silvino Talavera, who died in 2003 after being sprayed by agrochemicals while walking past the soy fields that border his family's house. They also speak with people from the community of Tekojoja, where inhabitants tried to halt the invasion of a soy field in their community, and suffered several violent police raids as a result of their protests.

Here is a short clip from the documentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSeySYzzil8.