Agribusiness

Agroextractivist José Claudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife Maria do Espírito Santo were murdered on May 23 in Nova Ipixuna in the southeast of Pará. The couple had been threatened by loggers in the region. The information was confirmed by the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) of Maraba. Both were leaving the Praia Alta Piranheira Agroextractivist Settlement Project where they lived en route to the town center when they were trapped on a bridge and shot.

The Chamber of Deputies decided today that Brazil should not be the country of the future. By 410 votes to only 63, federal deputies approved changes to the Brazilian Forest Code that are set to compromise the country's biodiversity as well as the sustainability of Brazilian agriculture. “Brazil woke up this morning with news of the murder of one of the Amazon Rainforest's strongest advocates,” announced Paulo Adario, director of Greenpeace's Amazon Campaign.

With the vote on reform of Brazil's Forest Code set for this Tuesday (24), fifteen hundred activists from civil society organizations marched this morning on the Ministries Esplanade in Brasília. “We are opposed to changes that will affect familial and peasant farming.

The contamination of the Pardo River, in the interior of SP, agricultural pesticides can cripple their drinking water due to the costs of constructing a water treatment plant that would eliminate these substances.

The statement is from professor of chemistry Cristina Pereira Rosa Paschoalato of Unaerp (University of Ribeirao Preto), which concluded a study on the river.

By Valéria Nader
From this point forward, the agribusiness 'shock troops' can now count on the support of one of the most powerful speakers with the widest visibility and circulation in the country, the newspaper Folha de São Paulo.

The coming together of financial capital and the large farming estates has brought about what is called ‘modern’ agribusiness. The logic of land exploitation – large expanses; monocropping; the growing of grains just for export; mechanization and low salaries – needs yet another poisonous ingredient: more than a billion liters of pesticides spread over Brazil’s farmland, in 2009 alone.

By Vinicius Mansur

The "Permanent Campaign against Pesticides and Life" will be launched by the movements of rural workers and environmentalists on the World Health Day, Thursday, April 7, 2011.

A landmark lawsuit filed on March 29 in US federal court seeks to invalidate Monsanto’s patents on genetically modified seeds and to prohibit the company from suing those whose crops become genetically contaminated.

By Riquieli Capitani

A newsletter of the Federation of Agriculture of the State of Paraná (Faep) announced a reduction of 10 km to 1,200 meters of the buffer zone of Iguaçu National Park, later this month, through an ordinance of the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation.

The women of Via Campesina held a National Day of Women’s Struggle in light of March 8 - International Women’s Day – to denounce the extreme gravity of the situation in the Brazilian countryside.