Farming in Argentina has seen dizzying expansion over the past two decades. That’s thanks largely to burgeoning Chinese demand for soybeans for use in animal feed, a consequence of China’s growing taste for meat. Also important has been the Argentine government’s decision in 1996 to allow commercial use of soy varieties genetically altered to tolerate glyphosate-based herbicides. Since then, the land area under cultivation here has grown to 36 million hectares (89 million acres) from 20 million hectares (49 million acres), with over half devoted to transgenic soy. Meanwhile, the government has approved cultivation of additional types of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), including transgenic corn and cotton. As the model of intensive, monocrop farming has expanded here, however, so has criticism of it within... [Log in to read more]