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This report aims to contribute to a better understanding of the implications of soybean production. To that end, it compiles and analyzes specific data on land and pesticide use in the main soybean producing countries of the Southern Cone of South America: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

This document is based on statistics that has been generated by national official bodies, specialized institutions, and organizations that produce first hand data on soybean cultivation. Statistics from the United Nations Program on Food and Agriculture (FAO) and complementary information reported in published literature have also been included.

The findings of this report points out the more comprehensive analysis of the implications of soybean cultivation is required to assess the real ecological and social costs of its production in the Americas.

On World Food Day, it is estimated that almost a billion people around the world are now suffering from hunger and malnutrition - a dramatic rise in number since the soaring food prices over the last three years. Of these, about half are estimated to live in smallholder farming households, while roughly two-tenths are landless, another tenth are pastoralists, fisherfolk, and forest users, and the remainder live in the cities. This crisis of world hunger is set to deepen as livelihood resources such as land and water continue to be transferred from such groups to the financially powerful in ever larger areas and longer timeframes.

Sélingué, Mali, 17 November 2011 – Today, more than 250 participants, mainly representatives of farmers’ organisations, from thirty different countries gathered in Nyéléni Village, a centre for agro-ecology training built in a rural area near Sélingué, in Mali, to participate into the first International farmers’ conference to stop land grabbing.

On World Food Day, 16th October 2010, it is estimated that almost a billion people around the world are now suffering from hunger and malnutrition - a dramatic rise in number since the soaring food prices over the last three years. Of these, about half are estimated to live in smallholder farming households, while roughly two-tenths are landless, another tenth are pastoralists, fisherfolk, and forest users, and the remainder live in the cities.

Development in Practice, Volume 17, Number 6, November 2007

Edited by Rebeca Leonard, Shalmali Guttal, and Peter Rosset

Copy edit Mary Ann Manahan

Lay-out Gaynor Tanyang

Cover Design Omna Cadavida-Jalmaani

Photos João Ripper, Jimmy Domingo, and MST

Publication Support Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst (EED)

To request for copies, please contact: Focus on the Global South, Philippines Programme 19 Maginhawa St. UP Village, Diliman Quezon City 1101 Philippines Tel: 63-2-433-3387 Fax: 63-2-433-0899 www.focusweb.org