Stories Of A Wounded Land | Reportage by Getty Images
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Conséquences désastreuses de l’agriculture intensive en Argentine. Article de Silvinia Heguy et photos d’Alvaro Ybarra Zavala.
Fumigations in the agricultural fields of Argentina are being denounced as the cause of the increasing number of children born with malformations, and the number of cases of cancer in the neighbouring rural populations. In the past ten years, the agricultural border has been extended practically as far as the front doors of people’s homes, and entire villages are being exposed to agrochemicals, supplies of which are necessary for intensive farming of crops to produce high yields, and are which being used without the control of the state. These are the stories of families who survive as best they can, under the effects of what they call “poisons. (...)
Argentina is one of the agricultural powerhouses of the world. After the United States and Brazil it is the world’s third largest producer of soybeans. This year it will produce 55 million tons. To do so, local environmental groups estimate that 300 million litres of agrochemicals are being sprayed over the soy fields. This affects 12 million people of Argentina’s overall population of 40 million, who are in contact with this poison in their homes, schools, water supplies, workplaces, on their playing fields, throughout their daily lives.