For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Genetic Engineering page, Millions Against Monsanto page, and our Food Safety Research Center page.

Roundup Ready soy is now being cultivated on a massive scale across the globe, along with the exponentially increasing use of the herbicide Roundup. Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” soy beans are  genetically modified to survive otherwise lethal doses of glyphosate, the active ingredient in the company’s herbicide Roundup.

It’s a win-win for Monsanto. But it’s a loss for just about everyone else.

One of the countries most affected by genetically engineered soy is Argentina, whose population is being sickened by massive spraying of herbicides across the country’s Pampas (the country’s “fertile plain”).

Argentina’s Pampas used to be dotted with dairy and vegetable farms, but now, large-scale soybean monoculture blankets most of their cultivated land, making them especially susceptible to the damaging effects of genetically engineered soy. The impact can be better appreciated by considering the following statistics:

-Soy is the main income source for landowners and the state-soybeans are considered a “gold mine” by Argentinians;

-soy exports generate 16,000 million dollars a year 

-The area cultivated with soy has reached 19 million hectares, representing 56 percent of Argentina’s cultivated land.

-98 percent of Argentina’s soybean production is genetically modified.

-190 million liters of glyphosate (the active agent in Roundup) are sprayed in Argentina annually, which is leading to not only illness among the population but to widespread deforestation, as trees are among the victims these herbicides leave in their wake of destruction.