The Killing Fields – human rights abuses and environmental devastation in Paraguay’s soya fields

|
Soya fields cut through rainforest
Vast swathes of rainforest are destroyed to make way for soya monocultures
Cheap meat has become a way of life in much of Europe, but the full price is being paid across Latin America as vast soya plantations and their attendant chemicals lead to poisonings and violence. Andrew Wasley reports
 

Much of the cheap meat and dairy produce sold in supermarkets across Europe is arriving as a result of serious human rights abuses and environmental damage in one of Latin America's most impoverished countries, according to a new film launched in conjunction with the Ecologist Film Unit.

An investigation in Paraguay has discovered that vast plantations of soy, principally grown for use in intensively-farmed animal feed, are responsible for a catalogue of social and ecological problems, including the forced eviction of rural communities, landlessness, poverty, excessive use of pesticides, deforestation and rising food insecurity.

To read the full investigation, click here.

Donate to The Ecologist and support high impact environmental journalism and analysis.

  • Soya fields cut through rainforest

    Killing fields: the true cost of Europe's cheap meat

    Andrew Wasley
     |
    Cheap meat has become a way of life in much of Europe, but the full price is being paid across Latin America as vast soya plantations and their attendant chemicals lead to poisonings and violence
  • Soya fields cut through rainforest

    Killing fields: the true cost of Europe's cheap meat

    Andrew Wasley
     |
    Cheap meat has become a way of life in much of Europe, but the full price is being paid across Latin America as vast soya plantations and their attendant chemicals lead to poisonings and violence. Andrew Wasley reports
  • Factory farmed pig

    Have we reached 'peak meat'?

    Natalie Bennett
     |
    UK's new trade and agriculture commission must address the dangers and inequalities rife in meat farming and processing.

More from this author