By Maria Aparecida 
Earlier on Thursday (March 3), about 600 women from Via Campesina and other social movements have closed part of Highway Cônego Domênico Rangoni, also known as Piaçaguera-Guaruja, which gives access to the industrial complex of Cubatão on the coast of São Paulo.
Over 1,000 women from the social movements of Ceará, the MST, the Movement of People's Councils and the Center of Popular Movements, made two marches to denounce the negative impacts to human health and the environment with excessive use of pesticides in Brazil and impact.
In Fortaleza, more than 600 women marched towards the Palace of the Abolition of the State Government. In Santa Quitéria, 500 women protest against the installation of mine Itataia1.
Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 3 (IPS) - Thousands of women farmers in Brazil demonstrated this week against the use of toxic weedkillers and 
pesticides on crops and in favour of agricultural techniques that protect their families' health.
Throughout Brazil, the women of Via Campesina triggered the Day of Struggles of Women to condemn the excessive use of pesticides by Brazilian cultivation, the responsibility of the agribusiness production model.
To date, six states are mobilized to denounce the harmful effects on health and the environment of the annual use of over a billion liters of poisons, according to data from the National Association of Industrial Products for Agricultural Defense.
Brazil ranks first in the list of countries consuming pesticides since 2009.
Women workers from the countryside and the city this year again are carrying out national days of struggle around the 8th of March – International Women’s Day.
Earlier on Tuesday (March 1), about 800 women occupied the courtyard of Braskem, Odebrecht Group1 in the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre.
The action is organized by the women of Via Campesina, Movement of Unemployed Workers (MTD), the Youth and Inter-Union Mobilization and integrates the national day of women's struggles.
Written by Ronildo Brito
Farmers call for the immediate expropriation of the old power plant Ariadnópolis, who has for years blocked the process in INCRA and the
