Dispatch #2: Jodie and Andrea writing from Paraguay
Rural campesino communities in Paraguay are isolated from each other by many conditions: poor roads, distance, lack of bus fare (or lack of buses), shoddy communication, and a self-reliance that keeps them bound to the land. And yet there is something that has evolved simultaneously in many of these separate communities – a consciousness that they share despite the isolation. The unfortunate commonality between them is a fear and loathing of industrial soy production.
How it is possible that the internal discourse in so many communities has independently turned to the problems with industrial soy is a demonstration of the crop’s pervasiveness, in fact, invasiveness in Paraguay. In reaction to soil, air and water contamination from pesticides; birth defect, disease and miscarriages from agrochemicals; as well as deforestation and displacement, campesino communities are organizing themselves to fight the colonization of their lands by powerful soy producers and multinational corporations like Cargill and Monstanto, which drive the soy zeitgeist.
In five days, we visited seven communities across the state of San Pedro. Up to fifty people came to meet with us at times – despite heavy rains and flooded roads – and we listened as each visit produced the same story. The land surrounding these communities was once subtropical forest. Then it was bulldozed and planted with soy. Now a thin strip of dirt road separates the first row of homes (those that are left) from the first row of soy, and thus the first line of chemical spray.
Accidentally, on our trip out to the communities, we came upon an agrobusiness convention hosted by Dekalpar, a company that commercializes products such as transgenic seeds, pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers. Dekalpar’s largest client? Monsanto. They called their exhibition Dia del Campo or “A Day in the Country”. The irony of this is that the traditional campo of Latin America is a place inhabited by…well…campesinos, i.e. self-sufficient farmers who work the land for subsistence rather than for profit. The field exhibition represented exactly the opposite – a corporate P.R. event attended by foreigners and wealthy Paraguayan land owners, who sell genetically modified soy and corn to exporters like Cargill and ADM, and who were there to check out the latest innovations in crop science and chemicals.
So what does a Dia del Campo really look like? In the first community of Toropiru, we met with a teacher named Samuel, who took us about ten meters behind his house to where the soyfields begin. His neighbors recently fled the area due to repeated fumigations, selling their land for an amount that afforded them one-eighth the acreage they owned here and even more remote. In the same community, Dekalpar is bribing and arming community members to fight their neighbors who resist the soy invasion. In another community called Colonia Barbera, we were shown a picture of a one-eyed pig born with a deformed snout that resembled a small elephant trunk. This pig was born next door to a school and its strange mutation is attributed to chemical exposure from the adjacent soy field – a soy field which, by the way, is labeled “responsible soy”.
Further out, in one of the few remaining forested areas of San Pedro, the Yaguarete forest is on the brink of total conversion to soy. The neighboring community (along with many others) has experienced intensifying criminalization by intruding land purchasers, who are in turn supported by the state to justify police presence and militarization around major areas of agricultural interest. By accusing campesinos of “terrorism”, they are able to make a case for expulsion, which clears the way for the installation of soy.
The examples could go on and on, for in a country with intense corruption, huge disparity in wealth and an ever-increasing infiltration of multinational corporations, there are extreme forces at work against the poor and disenfranchised. But the campesino communities that we have met with will not be victimized. They have plans. They will not be removed. They are occupying lands, writing declarations, organizing protests, holding meetings, educating each other, working with national NGOs, questioning the agricultural industrial complex, and calling out to the international community to support their struggle. As one community leader put it, “We are going to fight. I don’t know how it will work out, but we have to.”
Twitter Updates
What an amazing post. Thank so much to both of you.
Andrea and Jodie,
As I wipe the tears from my face after reading your dispatch from the field, I’m reminded of how important our work is. I’m reminded of the importance of international solidarity and corporate accountability. Thanks so much for representing RAN on this important fact-finding trip!
For the forests, family farmers and our climate!
Leila
Great post! Thanks for letting us know what is happening. How can I help in this campaign??
Thanks for reporting on this important issue that is also happening all over central and south america.
Thank you for you efforts. I hope this screwed up system of injustice, forced by leaders and law officials that have been prompted by the ag-industrial greed machine, gets shut down.
Indigenous people rule!!!!!
Andrea, I am so proud of you and the difference you are making in this world………….keep up the good work.
Dear Mike,
Thanks for asking how you can support the campaign. In the very near future we will be working with several of the communities we visited, as well as Asuncion based NGO, BASE Investigaciones Sociales, to send action alerts to local and national authorities. For example, one of the communities is facing imminent distruction of the surrounding forest by a land owner who is planning on producing soy. The community has requested that RAN supporters send email messages to the authorites, asking them to preserve this important forest. These communities have explicity stated that they are counting on the international solidarity of RAN activists and supporters, and they believe that thousands of letters will have an impact. Keep an eye out for these important action alerts!
Soy plantations are changing relentlessly the face of South America, the rich become richer and the poor become poorer(middle class practically does not exist) I always would be proud of everyone who stands for their rights, for a fair world, for sustainability, for peace and justice. BRAVO!!
CHINOKUE, Itakyry (Víctor Pizzurno, enviado especial). Unas 40 familias de campesinos de este temido asentamiento demostraron que la concertación agraria, entre campesinos y empresarios, es posible trabajando.
El pequeño productor Mario Gauto, presidente del comité de desarrollo comunitario, habla a sus vecinos de Chino Cue, durante el reunión realizada el fin de semana en su finca.
Una luz de esperanza para la solución de los conflictos rurales está siendo irradiada desde esta localidad del Alto Paraná, a unos 120 kilómetros de Ciudad del Este. Una organización campesina de este lugar, integrada por más de 30 familias, está demostrando al país que es posible la convivencia armónica e integrada entre el chokokue (labriego campesino) y el sojero (agricultor mecanizado).
Cultivando entre una y dos hectáreas de soja cada uno, 30 familias de Chino Cue lograron establecer en pequeñas fincas de la zona un total de 40 hectáreas de la oleaginosa y durante el “descanso” otoño invernal tienen programado cultivar 35 hectáreas de maíz, de acuerdo con los datos entregados por el líder del comité de desarrollo comunitario, Mario Gauto, durante la reunión del fin de semana.
El mismo explicó que ellos solo desarrollaban una agricultura de subsistencia y preocupados de que en la zona casi ya no queda materia prima para hacer carbón, el único rubro de renta que disponían, plantearon a la Municipalidad de Itakyry el desarrollo de renglones alternativos para los pobladores de Chino Cue.
Añadió que posteriormente se logró integrar las cooperaciones de las empresas Dekalpar y Caisa, vecinas del lugar, así como también la Coordinadora Agrícola del Paraguaya, entre otras.
Según el representante de los labriegos, el éxito obtenido se plasmó en una ganancia líquida de más G. 1.700.000 por hectárea, cifra que les quedó tras pagar todos sus créditos conseguidos en la empresa Dekalpar.
La metodología de trabajo fue que cada productor campesino obtuvo las semillas y los insumos con la promesa de pagar por ellos tras entregar la cosecha. La siembra y los cuidados culturales fueron hechos con implementos manuales o a tracción animal, mientras que la cosecha en algunos casos fue desarrollada con trilladoras tiradas por tractores pequeños y, en otros, con métodos manuales.
ENTUSIASMO EN LA ZONA
Aspecto de la reunión del Comité de Desarrollo Comunitario realizada en la finca de Mario Gauto, en la que también participaron líderes de otras zonas.
Por otra parte, el dirigente de la CAP, ingeniero agrónomo Héctor Cristaldo, dio a conocer que el emprendimiento todavía es pequeño porque se empezó solo con 30 familias seleccionadas para desarrollar dos cultivos en el año, aunque el objetivo es avanzar lento y seguro, apoyados en un censo local, planificando racionalmente para establecer un sistema de rotación con hasta 5 cultivos en dos años, involucrando a más labriegos del asentamiento. “El éxito creó entusiasmo entre los vecinos, por eso en los primeros días de junio haremos otro censo para planificar la próxima campaña, según las intenciones y posibilidades de cada campesino”, expresó.
Cristaldo destacó la labor desplegada por Mario Gauto, un genuino líder de gestión, que demuestra a nuestra sociedad que si se quiere se puede lograr la armonía entre vecinos en el campo. “Pequeños, medianos o grandes pueden trabajar integrados para el desarrollo comunitario cuando hay voluntad y diálogo, tal como en Chino Cue, colonia que no se caracteriza precisamente por buenas noticias en la prensa”, expresó.
PEQUEÑA AYUDA, GRAN BENEFICIO
A su vez, el empresario Omar Larré, directivo de Dekalpar y propietario de la firma Caisa, dijo que aunque la ayuda otorgada a los labriegos de Chino Cue fue pequeña ha dado gran beneficio y sobre todo armonía vecinal en la zona.
Comentó que el apoyo se constituyó en la financiación de semillas e insumos a precios preferenciales y asistencia técnica gratuita.
Dijo que fue clave la participación del intendente de Itakyry, Miguel Soria, quien fue el nexo inicial para la integración
http://www.abc.com.py/2008-05-25/articulos/418143/demuestran-que-la-concertacion-entre-campesinos-y-empresarios-es-posible