Environmental Injustice in Argentina: Struggles against Genetically Modified Soy

Abstract

This paper explores the unequal distribution of the environmental and social costs and benefits of the genetically modified (GM) soy model in Argentina and its impact on grievance formation and the emergence of contestation. In the 1990s, Argentina transitioned into a neoliberal agro-industrial model based on producing GM soy for export. Though celebrated as a success, the expansion of GM soy monocultures has brought widespread socio-ecological disruption. Various social actors have started to mobilize against the resulting environmental injustice. I focus on the peasant-indigenous movement in the north of the country, which is struggling for land rights, and the movements against agrochemical spraying in the central Pampas region. These groups, which are relatively powerless to control resources where they live, and that experience little or no benefit from GM soy production, nevertheless bear most of its social and ecological costs. These struggles link environmental and social well-being, becoming struggles for ecological sustainability as well as social justice and equity.

Poisoned, Dispossessed and Excluded: A Critique of the Neoliberal Soy Regime in Paraguay

“…The adoption of agro‐biotechnology contains an unequivocal bias in favour of large‐scale production, thereby excluding small‐scale farmers and peasants from the soy sector. The growing dependence on agrochemicals has raised serious health and environmental issues associated with the agrochemical drift from the fumigation of large farms, which has also been documented for Argentina (see Leguizamón ). Therefore, I conclude that Paraguay's insertion into the neoliberal soy regime is driving an unsustainable and unethical shift in the country's agricultural sector.…”

Reflections on How State–Civil Society Collaborations Play out in the Context of Land Grabbing in Argentina

“…The expansion of large-scale agriculture, plantation forestry, and nature conservation initiatives has led to many issues related to land use, including rural violence, land tenure insecurity for smallholders, and the violation of the rights of indigenous peoples [12,34,[38][39][40][41]. Land grabbing has led to food security issues for local communities, as well as to environmental degradation and health issues associated with agrochemical use [42,43]. Another impact is an increase in land prices [13,44].…”

“…Gran Chaco is allegedly the world's largest continuous dry forest [37]. Gran Chaco is also an active deforestation hotspot [42,47]. A high percentage of the population of Santiago del Estero are smallholders [44].…”

Land grabbing within a protected area: The experience of local communities with conservation and forestry activities in Los Esteros del Iberá, Argentina

“…Smallholders without formal title typically live either on land owned by a formal land owner who is not actively using the land, or on land owned by the state (Costantino, 2015;Jara and Paz, 2013). Even though the Argentine Civil Code provided a mechanism for informal owners to gain formal land titles when they have lived on the same piece of land for over 20 years, people have struggled to exercise this right (Goldfarb and van der Haar, 2015; Leguizamón, 2016). Obtaining land titles based on historical land use or customary rights is complicated and prohibitively expensive for informal land users (Brent, 2015).…”