DECEMBER AT NYÉLÉNI: The month of #Agroecology🌿 and corporate capture.
As part of our month dedicated to Agroecology, Nyéléni is pleased to share the following article, originally published on the Agrotóxico Mata: Permanent Campaign Against Pesticides and for Life website. This initiative brings together the Movimento dos Pequenos Agricultores (MPA), the Coordenação Nacional de Articulação de Quilombos (CONAQ), the Movimento dos Pescadores e Pescadoras Artesanais (MPP), the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), the Pastoral da Juventude Rural (PJR), Vía Campesina Brazil, and many other movements and civil society organizations across Latin America.
The documentary series Por la tierra is available online starting this Thursday, the 28th. Produced by the Argentine organization Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS), the series addresses the expansion of agribusiness and human rights violations linked to the intensive use of pesticides. Over the course of four episodes, it recounts cases of territory contamination in rural and urban areas of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay. The launch of this documentary took place on Tuesday, the 26th, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Watch the trailer of the documentary series here:
“It is important, in some way, to show the world the conditions that communities are enduring. Cities in Latin America are being contaminated by pesticides due to a production model,” highlights María José Venancio, a lawyer with CELS, regarding the importance of raising global awareness about what is happening in Latin America. “Our lives, our territories are being turned into sacrifice zones to feed a few. This unfair distribution of global resources robs us of our wealth, our health, and our lives to enrich other regions. For this reason, it is essential for us to denounce the human rights violations suffered by Latin American populations so the world becomes aware of this reality,” she adds.
The episodes depict a common scenario of monoculture expansion, intensive pesticide use, and significant socio-environmental impacts caused by agribusiness, particularly affecting traditional peoples and communities.
Episode about Argentina
In the episode about Argentina, the series highlights the case of Pergamino, a soybean-producing hub. The rampant use of pesticides in soybean cultivation near urban areas has led to serious health problems for families, with high levels of glyphosate detected in their urine.
Episode about Paraguay
In Colonia Yerutí Ñu, located in the northwest region of Paraguay, peasant communities face the impacts of agribusiness expansion on their lands. Surrounded by soybean crops and confined to an increasingly reduced territory, they have begun showing signs of acute poisoning.
Episode about Bolivia
In Bolivia, the Chiquitanía region, home to the Chiquitano Indigenous people, has been affected by the expansion of soybean cultivation and deforestation.
Episode about Brazil
Finally, the Brazilian case presented in the series highlights the contamination affecting the Avá-Guarani Indigenous people. Located in western Paraná, these communities suffer from the encroachment of agribusiness on their territories and the impacts of intensive pesticide use in monocultures.
Read the full article available in Portuguese here