Green advocates in May took to the Entre Ríos provincial legislature to protest an agrochemicals bill they deemed insufficiently restrictive. (Photo courtesy Foro Ecologista de Paraná.)
Farmers in Bolivia and Argentina are pushing back against curbs on transgenic, chemical-intensive agriculture. Alarming farmers in Argentina is a recent court decision restricting where aerial and land spraying of agrochemicals can take place in Entre Ríos, a major farming province in the country’s east-central region. They say the ruling will force a halt to production on hundreds of thousands of hectares of cropland, causing economic and social hardship. In Bolivia, farmers object to language in the country’s constitution that appears to outlaw cultivation of all genetically modified plants except for a type of herbicide-resistant soy introduced in 2005, four years before the latest version of the constitution took effect. They argue that countervailing language in the constitution could be used to make further exceptions. And unless this is done, they warn, they’ll be unable to compete with farmers in other countries who are allowed to grow... [Log in to read more]
