Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 3 (IPS) - Thousands of women farmers in Brazil demonstrated this week against the use of toxic weedkillers and 
pesticides on crops and in favour of agricultural techniques that protect their families' health.
Throughout Brazil, the women of Via Campesina triggered the Day of Struggles of Women to condemn the excessive use of pesticides by Brazilian cultivation, the responsibility of the agribusiness production model.
To date, six states are mobilized to denounce the harmful effects on health and the environment of the annual use of over a billion liters of poisons, according to data from the National Association of Industrial Products for Agricultural Defense.
Brazil ranks first in the list of countries consuming pesticides since 2009.
Women workers from the countryside and the city this year again are carrying out national days of struggle around the 8th of March – International Women’s Day.
Earlier on Tuesday (March 1), about 800 women occupied the courtyard of Braskem, Odebrecht Group1 in the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre.
The action is organized by the women of Via Campesina, Movement of Unemployed Workers (MTD), the Youth and Inter-Union Mobilization and integrates the national day of women's struggles.
Written by Ronildo Brito
Clifford Andrew Welch
Syngenta is a multinational agribusiness corporation based in Basel, Switzerland. Syngenta was the first global group to focus exclusively on agribusiness products.
Dear Friends of the MST,
We live in a dominant economic system that for centuries has engaged in the unlimited exploitation of all ecosystems and their natural resources.
