Agritoxins

By Luiz Felipe Albuquerque

Agriculture has undergone a major transformation in Brazil over the past 10 years, with the advancement of the agribusiness model. This model is based on: the production of monocultures on large estates; in an alliance of capitalist farmers, transnational corporations and financial capital; a mechanization that promotes expelling families from the countryside; and in an excessive use poisons, the agro-toxins.

With 15 votes, five requests for diligence and two abstentions, the National Technical Commission on Biosafety (CTNBio) approved on the morning of Thursday (September 15, 2011), the commercial release of transgenic soya, developed by researchers at Embrapa [Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation].

Everywhere in the world large multinationals determine the political game. One of the biggest global players is Bayer AG, present in all countries. The former subsidiaries of IG Farben (BASF, Bayer and Hoechst) dominate the European chemical industry and have an annual volume of 90 billion euros. No government or political institution, can escape the influence of this powerful mechanism.
 

The Guarani aquifer, the source of 100% of the water serving Riberao Preto, a city in the northeast of Sao Paulo state located 313km from the state capital, is threatened by herbicides.

By Luís Osete

 By Vivian Fernandes

By Benjamin Dangl

Early in the morning on May 24, in the northern Brazilian Amazon, José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife Maria do Espírito Santo da Silva got onto a motorcycle near the nature reserve they had worked on for over two decades. As the couple rode past the jungle they dedicated their lives to protecting, gunmen hiding near a bridge opened fire, killing them both.

By João Márcio (Marabá, Pará)

 After an overnight vigil, peasant movements, students, teachers from the Federal University of Pará (UFPA) and settled families of the MST sealed off the Carajás railway bridge this Thursday. The bridge stands over the River Tocantins in Marabá.

Agroextractivist José Claudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife Maria do Espírito Santo were murdered on May 23 in Nova Ipixuna in the southeast of Pará. The couple had been threatened by loggers in the region. The information was confirmed by the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) of Maraba. Both were leaving the Praia Alta Piranheira Agroextractivist Settlement Project where they lived en route to the town center when they were trapped on a bridge and shot.