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BUENOS AIRES – After more than a decade of campaigning against toxic agrochemicals, a group of women from a poor neighborhood in the northern Argentine city of Cordoba have brought large-scale soybean growers to trial for the health damages caused by spraying.

The trial began in June, and the sentence is to be handed down on Aug. 21. In the dock are two soybean producers, Francisco Parra and Jorge Gabrielli, and the pilot of a spray plane, Edgardo Pancello.

The prosecutors are seeking four years of prison for Parra and three years for Pancillo. But the prosecutor’s office has not filed charges against Gabrielli, due to the lack of clear evidence of his responsibility, and he is expected to be acquitted.

The court must decide whether there is enough evidence to link the spraying of agrochemicals with harmful health effects, and sentence accordingly. Related IPS Articles

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“We are not satisfied with the sentences sought by the prosecutor. They have done so much damage to us, and we were hoping for more. But at least it will set a precedent in the country,” one of the plaintiffs, Sofia Gatica, told IPS.

Gatica won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize this year for her activity in defense of the environment and the lives of people in her working-class neighborhood, Ituzaingo Anexo, on the outskirts of Cordoba.

For years, the 5,000 people of Ituzaingo Anexo suffered the impacts of spraying on the commercial soybean fields surrounding the neighborhood. Many homes are just meters away from the crops.

In 1999, Gatica’s daughter died of kidney failure three days after her birth. The mother’s grief turned into anger, and she started to keep track of the cases of cancer, birth defects and other health problems in the neighborhood.