Residents Say "Stop the Spraying!" (Argentina)

[nosmokes]

another one of the beaties of GM crops - you can really swamp them with herbicide. in fact, when the weeds become resistant after a number of generations of being drowned in the poison that's what happens, but it doesn't help. and the farmer hasta start a regimen of adding pre-emergent pesticides at an added cost as well as using farr more glyphosphates than anyone ever intended and followed up with another treatment of post emergent pesticide. meanwhile, what's a little cancer at the expense of more profit? - nosmokes
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original-IPSNEWS

ARGENTINA:
Residents Say "Stop the Spraying!"

Marcela Valente* - Tierramérica

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 17 (IPS) - Cultivation of genetically modified soybeans is expanding in Argentina, and with it, the use of herbicides. The "Paren de fumigar" (Stop the Fumigation) campaign warns against agro-chemical spraying in urban areas, as activists collect information about its impacts in order to denounce it.
Behind the initiative are the Rural Reflection Group (GRR), the Nature Protection Centre and neighbourhood organisations.

Jorge Rulli, with GRR, told Tierramérica that so far this year the campaign -- which began in January and covers all rural areas -- collected more than 60 complaints. He explained that "it is no accident" that most of them come from the provinces of Córdoba (central Argentina) and Santa Fe (central-east), which along with Buenos Aires province make up the country's epicentre of soybean cultivation -- and the associated use of the herbicide glyphosate.

"We want to put together a map showing that (the intensive use of agro-toxins) is a systemic model of rural development that will produce a health catastrophe," Rulli said.

In the last 15 years, genetically modified (GM) soybean farming has extended its zone of influence, and today is Argentina's leading crop, as well as the country's principal export.

The latest harvest of 15.5 million hectares consumed 160 million liters of glyphosate -- six times more than a decade ago. The serious problem, according to the groups' complaint, is that this chemical, which kills all plants except for the transgenic crop itself, is sprayed within metres of people's homes.

Historically, forests, dairy farms and pastures surrounded the towns, and mitigated the impact of chemical spraying of fields. But now those protective barriers have disappeared.

"We have soybeans to the north, south and east," said Sofia Gatica, who lives in the Ituzaingó Anexo neighbourhood on the outskirts of Córdoba, capital of the province of the same name.

Home to 5,000 people, Ituzaingó Anexo is the limit between city and countryside. "I cross the street and that's where the soybeans begin. And of course if they plant it, they also spray it," Gatica said in a conversation with Tierramérica.

According to Argentina's 2005 Law on Agro-Toxins, the limit for spraying pesticides and herbicides is 1,500 metres from populated areas.

In 2002, the neighbourhood was declared a health emergency area after a study by the provincial ministry of health found higher incidences of leukemia, lupus, skin hemorrhages and genetic malformations.
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here

[let us vote]

1. kick. Don't buy anything from Argentina.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. 60 complaints?

My goodness.