Paraguay is the fastest growing soybean producer in the world bringing untold riches to a very poor and corrupt country. The bean fields stretch far into the distance, consuming the horizon with waves of green leaves and a stink like dead animals from toxic agro-chemicals.
"The Soybean Wars," a radio documentary
Published April 25, 2008
Soybeans, rows and rows of soybeans all around. In western Paraguay the fields that were once thick rain forests are now soybean plantations. They stretch far into the distance swaying hypnotically back and forth in the wind. This ocean of soy, though, is dotted with small islands — houses, actually, that belong to the subsistence campensinos who once eked out a living farming an array of crops like sugar, cotton, wheat, and maize.
But now there is only industrial harvested soy. And pesticides. Soybeans, of course, have a very good reputation in the West (think tofu and biofuels), but the reality is they have damaging repercussions in developing nations where environmental laws are lax and local populations are exploited by multinational corporations. Right now, this is happening in Paraguay, the world's fastest growing soybean producer. (Soundprint website)
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Food insecurity can result from climate change, urban development, population growth and oil price shifts that are interconnected and rarely confined by borders. It’s an issue of global importance,...
Paraguay is the world's fastest growing producer of soybeans. But the boom has been bad for native peasants.
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Charles Lane is a freelance radio and print reporter. He has worked for National Public Radio, Voice of America, Penthouse Magazine, and the Religion News Service. His fourth radio documentary...
