The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

260 the world according to monsantopeasant family filled with that nourishing vision of agriculture. About forty,Héctor Barchetta farmed 315 acres about thirty-five miles from Rosario, thecapital of the transgenic empire. A member of the Argentine Agrarian Federation,an association of seventy thousand small and medium-sized farms,he confessed that he was “at a complete loss.” As he walked through thefields of RR soybeans that now cover 70 percent of his farm, he told me thestory of a miracle that was in the process of becoming a nightmare.In the 1990s, he confronted a problem that affected all the farmers of thepampas: the erosion of the soil because of excessively intensive exploitation.According to INTA, yields had fallen by 30 percent. “We didn’t know whichway to turn,” he told me, “and that’s when RR soybeans arrived. At first, theywere really magic seeds, because we returned to high yields, with reducedcosts and less work.” In fact, as in the United States, transgenic agriculturewas developed with the technique of “direct sowing” (siembra directa),which permits direct planting, with no prior plowing, in the residue of theprevious crop. Promotion and technical advice were provided by Aapresid,the Argentine Association of No-Till Farmers, which bears a strong resemblanceto its North American counterpart, the American Soybean Association(ASA).Grouping together fifteen hundred large producers, Aapresid is the principalpromoter of RR soybeans and Monsanto’s most loyal ally in Argentina.“The technique of siembra directa is an integral part of the model of transgenicfarming,” according to the agronomist Walter Pengue. “At first it didlead to the restoration of soil fertility through an increase in organic mattersupplied by the surface residues, which retained water. The technique cannotbe dissociated from what Monsanto calls the ‘technological package,’transgenic seeds and Roundup sold together, and there the company demonstratedits great skill by launching its ‘package’ at one third the price it chargedin the United States.” The price was so low, in fact, that North Americanproducers, even though they were heavily subsidized, howled in protestagainst this “unfair competition.”Barchetta, for one, took the bait enthusiastically. “Before,” he told me, “todestroy weeds I had to apply four or five different herbicides, but with RRsoybeans, two applications of Roundup were enough. And then, to top it off,the mad cow crisis made the price of soybeans take off, and I stopped producingcorn, wheat, sunflowers, and lentils, like all my neighbors.” The Europeanprohibition on animal-based feeds did bring about increased demand