The women of Via Campesina held a National Day of Women’s Struggle in light of March 8 - International Women’s Day – to denounce the
extreme gravity of the situation in the Brazilian countryside.
By Bianca Costa
On the morning of March 8, 2006, 1,800 women from Via Campesina carried out a major action against the monoculture of eucalyptus in Rio Grande do Sul.
By Maria Aparecida 
Earlier on Thursday (March 3), about 600 women from Via Campesina and other social movements have closed part of Highway Cônego Domênico Rangoni, also known as Piaçaguera-Guaruja, which gives access to the industrial complex of Cubatão on the coast of São Paulo.
Over 1,000 women from the social movements of Ceará, the MST, the Movement of People's Councils and the Center of Popular Movements, made two marches to denounce the negative impacts to human health and the environment with excessive use of pesticides in Brazil and impact.
In Fortaleza, more than 600 women marched towards the Palace of the Abolition of the State Government. In Santa Quitéria, 500 women protest against the installation of mine Itataia1.
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.
Syngenta is a multinational agribusiness corporation based in Basel, Switzerland. Syngenta was the first global group to focus exclusively on agribusiness products.
