Photo: @biodiversidadla.orgAccess the publication here (in Spanish)On 18 May, the web site Biodiversidad en América Latina y el Caribe will publish the book (in Spanish) Transgenic Agribusiness in the Southern Cone: Monocultures, Resistance, and Peoples’ Proposals. The objective of the book is to analyse the impacts of the model of genetically modified (GM) crops installed in the Southern region of South America during the second half of the 1990s. Edited by Acción por la Biodiversidad and systematised by Darío Aranda, the aim of the Atlas is that it serve as a tool for those who are resisting in the territories, struggling in defence of life and for Food Sovereignty. To that end, the publication will be free of charge and open for download.The book is comprised of 22 chapters and addresses the introduction of the GM model in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia; the growing use of agrotoxins linked to these seeds; science at the service of the model; concentration of lands and criminalisation of peasants; attempts to modify seed laws to establish a system of patents; destruction of ecosystems and regional economies; oligopolistic market control by a handful of corporations; the impact of agribusiness on the bodies of women; and Agroecology as an alternative to this predatory model.As Damián Verzeñassi, director of the Universidad Nacional’s socio-environmental health institute in Rosario (Instituto de Salud Socioambiental de la Facultad de Ciencias Médicas de la Universidad Nacional de Rosario), states in the prologue, this Atlas “without doubt will be continually nourished and updated with the contributions of the communities that embrace it and transformed into a tool to strengthen their struggles, resistances, and sowing. Because this Atlas, a fruit of collective work, is already searching for fertile territories to germinate a healthy world.”Meanwhile, Marielle Palau, member of Bases Investigaciones Sociales, highlights in the second prologue that, “much material about the issues addressed here exist in the countries of the region. However, none has such a complete regional perspective [as this one], demonstrating that we are experiencing – suffering from – a regional strategy from agribusiness companies that violate human rights and the rights of nature, at the same time that we are – without prior consultation – a large field test.”About Acción por la Biodiversidad Acción por la Biodiversidad is a collective that has accompanied the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean for the past 20 years in safeguarding the commons, disseminating activities and proposals of Latin American organisations that defend Biodiversity as part of peoples’ culture and sustenance. The group is part of Alianza por la Biodiversidad, a Latin American collective platform that gathers 13 key organisations and movements in the region, and that collectively edits the magazine Biodiversidad, sustento y culturas.Read complete article (Spanish only)