Syngenta Soy War: Showdown Between the Social Movements and Agribusiness in Brazil

Curitiba, Brazil - The recent decree by Roberto Requião, Governor of the state of Paraná, to expropriate the Syngenta corporation's experimental site in Santa Tereza do Oeste has become a powerful symbol for all interests in the struggle over the future of Brazilian agriculture. The magnitude of Requião's decision was highlighted on November 30th when members of the rural social movements the Via Campesina and the Movement of the Landless Rural Workers (MST) closed the first Meeting of Education in Agrarian Reform, in Cascavel, with a march to the Syngenta site. En route to the march, the movements' busses were halted by a blockade of tractors formed by about 100 members of the Rural Society of the West (SRO), an elite group representing the interests of large landowners and commercial agricultural producers in western Paraná. Some SRO members were on horseback and armed with guns. As the marchers began to cross the barricade on foot, a violent conflict began. Shots were fired into the air, and pieces of wood were used to beat the marchers. While no one was hospitalized, the confrontation resulted in the injury of nine people. According to Alessandro Meneghel, President of the SRO, the blockade was created "to show that the rural producers will no longer peacefully accept land invasions and political provocations."

The conflict over Syngenta began on March 14th when about six hundred members of the Via Campesina and the MST occupied the 127-hectare locale after the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Natural Resources (IBAMA), the federal environmental agency, confirmed that Syngenta had illegally planted twelve hectares of genetically-modified (GM) soybeans there.