Cultivation of transgenic soybeans. Effects on peasant and indigenous communities in eastern Paraguay

Abstract

The work offers a critical look at the socio-cultural and economic impacts of GM crops on indigenous and peasant communities in the eastern region of Paraguay. Special attention is paid to the use of Roundup, with its undoubted environmental costs and uncertain risks to human and animal health. The impacts and interactions that the techno-commodification of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has on the affected populations and the environment – ​​species, soil, water, forest, flora, fauna – are discussed in the work.

The scope of the use of glyphosate in transgenic crops would not only involve the environment of the crop, but would also generate profound cultural, technological, management, environmental, economic, social and legal changes, the effects of which we have already seen with the decline of peasant and indigenous communities, who, by not finding adequate strategies to confront them, collapse as a community. The work contains important elements to renew the debate and critical thinking around the problem of transgenic agriculture and its impact on indigenous and rural populations.