Site with information about the impacts of large monocultures, specifically soy, on people's lives and the environment.
The Soy Campaign
A SEED's soy campaign questions large scale soy production in South America and supports sustainable and local food production in Europe. The campaign has the following goals:
To inform the general public about the social and ecological effects of the massive soy production in Latin America; land conflicts, violence, rising pesticide use, GMOs, deforestation, erosion and loss of food sovereignty.
To link the issue with meat production and consumption in Europe; Most of the soy is used as animal feed in Europe (and China). This meat industry creates animal cruelty and pollution by over-fertilisation.
To stop the current certification processes; nature conservation organisations and some NGOs, together with companies, are creating criteria for so called 'responsible soy' that are unacceptable for local peasants and don't question the current export-volume neither the use of genetically manipulated seeds.
To give direct support to local initiatives that fight the soy expansion by giving international attention to their struggle, doing solidarity actions in Europe and raising money.
While the problems related to soy production are continuously increasing, a new campaign focus is taking shape: fuel and electricity produced from agriculture products. Recently the threat of climate change and the increasing scarcity of fossil fuels has sped up this alarming development.
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April 17: Activists block Cargill in Belgium
Friday, 18 April 2008
Thursday April 17th, the international day of farmers struggles, the group Agrocrisis blocked a Cargill company firm in the harbour of Ghent, Belgium. Some 30 activists began the action at around 6h30 in the morning and lasted until after 5 p.m. During all that time, not one truck with soy could enter or leave the firm. Some activists had locked themselves with pipes and bicycle chains at the gate, so it was impossible to open the entrance without brute force. The staff of the firm, scared of bad publicity, chose therefore to let the activists occupy the gate and didn't ask the police to intervene.
The action got quite some media-coverage in mainstream Flemish press (radio, tv, newspapers and internet). Choosing Cargill as a target to celebrate the international Day of the Campesino, was easy but also gives much space for different perspectives, some easy to understand for mainstream media, some more complex. Of course there is the topic of increasing world hunger because of the centralisation of control of the foodmarket by agrogiants like Cargill, but there is also the theme of gmo's and pesticides for animal fodder, the expulsion of peasant farmers worldwide for the monoculture model and bigger profits, the costs of an agro-exportmodel (contrary to small scale distribution) and the greenwash of and investments in agrofuels.
On top of that, the action group wanted to put some spotlights on Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS) that is taking place on April 23d and 24th in Buenos Aires. Agrogiants like Cargill, the oil industry and big food processing companies want to agree on a so-called responsible soy certificate. They negotiate this with ngo's like WWF.
As the process is developing now, it seems like the RTRS is even going to label Monsanto's Roundup Ready (gmo soy annex pesticide) as responsible. Like the previous years many social organisations and peasant movements are considering this as the ultimate greenwash attempt by agrobusiness. According to An Maeyens, press spokeswoman of the action group, "there are talks for years and after that a few minor adjustments will be done for a part of the production. Not a single hectare will be returned for small peasant production, but meanwhile it clears the image of the companies and is silencing critics." Also the peasant movements are stating that large scale soy monocultures can never be sustainable.
The current EU agrofuel policy is only adding up to this impact.
You can still sign the international petition against the RTRS, until April 20th, on http://lasojamata.org/node/110.
Last Updated ( Sunday, 20 April 2008 )
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Soy 
Thursday April 17th, the international day of farmers struggles, the group Agrocrisis blocked a Cargill company firm in the harbour of Ghent, Belgium. Some 30 activists began the action at around 6h30 in the morning and lasted until after 5 p.m. During all that time, not one truck with soy could enter or leave the firm. Some activists had locked themselves with pipes and bicycle chains at the gate, so it was impossible to open the entrance without brute force. The staff of the firm, scared of bad publicity, chose therefore to let the activists occupy the gate and didn't ask the police to intervene.
