{"id":548,"date":"2009-09-20T07:25:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-20T11:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/we-couldnt-do-agriculture-in-argentina.html"},"modified":"2009-09-20T07:25:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-20T11:25:00","slug":"we-couldnt-do-agriculture-in-argentina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/we-couldnt-do-agriculture-in-argentina.html","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;We couldn&#8217;t do agriculture in Argentina&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"Jude Webber and Hal Weitzman reported in\nThe Financial Times on\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/cms\/s\/0\/3d74344c-4be8-11de-b827-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1\">Argentina pressed to ban crop chemical<\/a>:\n<blockquote>\nA group of environmental lawyers has petitioned the Supreme Court to\nimpose a six-month ban on the sale and use of glyphosate, which is\nthe basis for many herbicides, including the US agribusiness giant\nMonsanto\u2019s Roundup product.\n<p>\nA ban, if approved, would mean \u201cwe couldn\u2019t do agriculture in\nArgentina\u201d, said Guillermo Cal, executive director of CASAFE,\nArgentina\u2019s association of fertiliser companies.\n<\/blockquote>\nMy, that&#8217;s rather apocalyptic!\n<p>\nAnd financially even worse:\n<blockquote>\nAny ban on the use of glyphosate could have dire fiscal consequences:\nthe already cash-strapped Argentine government relies heavily on tariffs\nlevied on agricultural exports. It is expected to rake in some $5bn this\nyear, although that is about half the previous year\u2019s level after a\nlongrunning conflict with farmers, a bitter drought and lower prices\nhave slashed production of the country\u2019s main cash crop, soya.\n<\/blockquote>\nOr is it?\n<blockquote>\nMr Carrasco acknowledged there were \u201ctoo many economic interests at\nstake\u201d to ban glyphosate outright. But, he said, officials could start\nring-fencing the problem by enforcing effective controls where crops\nare sprayed.\n<\/blockquote>\nThat would be a start.\nWorking on other methods of weed and insect control would be even better.\n<p>\nThe Financial Times does mention that there are Argentine studies that support\nDr. Carrasco&#8217;s as-yet-unpublished study:\n<blockquote>\nResearch by other Argentine scientists and evidence from local campaigners\nhas indicated a high incidence of birth defects and cancers in people\nliving near crop-spraying areas. One study conducted by a doctor, Rodolfo\nP\u00e1ramo, in the northern farming province of Santa F\u00e9 reported 12\nmalformations per 250 births, well above the normal rate.  <\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\nYet the Financial Times did not mention the numerous scientific\nstudies in other countries that show similar results.\n<p>\nMonsanto is worldwide, after all.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jude Webber and Hal Weitzman reported in The Financial Times on Argentina pressed to ban crop chemical: A group of environmental lawyers has petitioned the Supreme Court to impose a six-month ban on the sale and use of glyphosate, which is the basis for many herbicides, including the US agribusiness giant Monsanto\u2019s Roundup product. A [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,8,40,174,44,12,73],"tags":[1023,988,239,1814,1815,2763,1813,15,179],"class_list":["post-548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agriculture","category-agrochemicals","category-economy","category-glyphosate","category-health","category-politics","category-science","tag-andres-carrasco","tag-argentina","tag-birth-defects","tag-casafe","tag-financial-times","tag-glysophate","tag-guillermo-cal","tag-monsanto","tag-roundup"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Gj0O-8Q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}