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agribusiness

Here’s who to blame for the Amazon rainforest inferno

By Mark A. Bonta / September 7, 2019 / Comments Off on Here’s who to blame for the Amazon rainforest inferno

A confusing tangle of allegations made it difficult to figure out who was at fault for the wildfires consuming Brazil’s Amazon rainforest this summer. President Jair Bolsonaro has famously blamed environmental organizations for setting the fires, claiming that they are disgruntled after he cut off their access to foreign funds. One ruralist — the cattle […]

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Paraguay’s soybean boom is a human-rights crisis

By Mark A. Bonta / August 28, 2019 / Comments Off on Paraguay’s soybean boom is a human-rights crisis

Genetically modified soybeans, grown on an industrial scale, have made Paraguay the world’s sixth-largest producer of the crop — and the plantation owners rich. Yet these soybean plantations gobble up land and guzzle water, and require massive use of agricultural chemicals, bringing about what the United Nations now says is a human-rights crisis for small-scale […]

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