Landmark Sentence for Agrochemical Contamination in Cordoba | Dos condenas y una absolución en el primer juicio por el uso de agroquímicos en Córdoba

By Kate Beioley, Argentina Independent | Staff, Los Andes. Two men, rural producer Francisco Parra and chemical-application person Edgardo Pancello, were sentenced to three-year prison terms for use of the agrochemicals endosulphin and glyphosate in the barrio of Ituzaingó Anexo. So far, 200 cases of cancer have been discovered in the barrio, 100 of these fatal. (English | Spanish)

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Peasants In Nacunday Losing Patience With Paraguayan Government

By Staff, Prensa Latina. Thousands of peasants from Ñacunday, in eastern Paraguay, have set a one-week limit for the government to hand over 37,000 acres of land, which they consider to be illegally held by agribusiness.

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Subsidizing Haitian Farmers Into Chemical Dependency

By Staff (TB), Haiti Libre | Commentary by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Local importers of fertilizers and the Haitian government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Monday, June 25, 2012, to fix a bag of nitrogenous fertilizer at $21 and sulfate fertilizer at $13. Chemical fertilizer is cheap now that it is subsidized. After the native strains of rice, corn, and other crops vanish, the fertilizer will cost its full price.

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Tragic Week in Paraguay | Semana trágica en Paraguay

By Javiera Manuela Rulli and Reto Sonderegger, Parar El Mundo | Translated by Lilian Joensen for Grupo de Reflexión Rural | Friends of the Earth | Haiti Chery. An explanation of the chain of events that have shaken Paraguay, from the Curuguaty deaths on June 15 to the June 22 overthrow of Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo. (English | Spanish)

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Trim the Fat from the US Farm Bill

Deseret News Editorial | Rebekah Wilce, PR Watch | Commentary by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Farm Bill 2012 has met more public outrage over subsidies than any previous farm bill. A quarter of U.S. farms earn over $100,000 a year, and the net income of all farms, at $91.7 billion, is the second-highest level ever. Yet the government subsidizes some farmers whether or not they plant a crop, and the top 4% of those subsidized get 74% of all the funds.

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What Price a Bee?

By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery | David Gardner, Mail Online. The worldwide decline in honeybee populations and so-called colony-collapse disorder (CCD) is alternately blamed on the unpredictability of flowering by many plants due to climate change, the ravages of new pesticides, parasitic mites and, more recently, the viruses harbored by these mites. Were it not for some spectacular traffic accidents in recent years, we would not know about the lucrative business, since the 1990’s, of trucking bees by the tens of millions for agribusiness.

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Exporting Misery to Haiti: How Pigs, Rice and US Policy Undermined the Haitian Economy

By James Ridgeway, Reader Supported News | Haiti Chery “Since the 1980s, in particular, the United States has helped turn a nation of low-tech subsistence farmers into a dumping ground for American agribusiness.”

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