A mother of sick children has been fighting in Argentina for years against highly toxic chemicals in fields. The result: stabbed dog, threat, police protection. But she does not give up – with growing success.
The poison came from the air – and later directly from the tap. First the skin itched, the eyes burned, the nasal mucosa inflamed. Whenever the airplanes came in the fields next door and the clouds of poison slowly covered the houses and gardens of Pergamino, they seeped into soils and groundwater – where Sabrina Ortiz lives with her family. „My two children are ill, my girl has chronic bone marrow infection, my son has an autoimmune disease, and I already had a second stroke,“ she says.
Pergamino is located in the heart of the soybean province of Buenos Aires. Here, most of the 400 million liters of chemicals used in Argentina’s agriculture are sprayed annually: on huge plantations with genetically modified soy, corn or citrus fruits, in monoculture, for export – even to Europe. Market leader among the plant poisons is Roundup, marketed by the Bayer subsidiary Monsanto, with the active ingredient glyphosate. „We’ve all seen massively elevated pesticide levels in our blood, especially glyphosate, my son has 120 times more body weight than his body can handle, he’s six years old,“ says Ortiz.
Carcinogenic chemicals are sprayed
Argentine legislation allows for 100 times more pollution limits than European legislation – but the amount of pesticides in Pergaminos drinking water was even higher. In addition to glyphosate, 17 other highly toxic chemicals were found, half of them carcinogenic. One of them: the long-banned herbicide atrazine in Europe.
When Sabrina Ortiz demanded to set up at least protection zones around the residential areas, she was first ignored, then threatened – even by neighbors, because almost all live in Pergamino from agriculture. Eight years ago, the family claims to have started the fight against chemicals. Right at the beginning her dog had been shot – by the neighbor, a producer. „Letters came, we found a cross of soybeans on our car, there were threats from people close to the local government, after all, I got police protection,“ says Ortiz. The problem: The lobby of the big corporations, Bayer, Monsanto is enormous. „Their influence on politics is about multibillion-dollar interests, and that also causes people to be afraid to sue.“
Lawsuits against Bayer from South America?
But Ortiz has found fellow combatants in other mothers – and she has studied law to defend her case. Now they achieved a partial success: 600 meters around the residential district may no longer be sprayed. A similar verdict on protection zones around rural schools recently described Argentina’s president as absurd and irresponsible. That’s why Ortiz wants to continue fighting. She wants the manufacturers of herbal toxins to be held accountable.
The lawsuit in the US against Monsanto gives her great hope. That gives her and the other mothers strength – also because the cases are very similar, as their own. „It can not be that a producer is sued at the end, or a community, that has to go to the brink, to those who like Monsanto recruiting their products here, as if one could carelessly water the vegetable garden,“ Ortiz demands. Ads by Monsanto containing such content would have been in the newspapers.
In March, Ortiz joined forces with other stakeholders from Argentina and five other Latin American countries to form a network. Including NGOs and lawyers from Germany. It is currently being examined how European agricultural companies such as Monsanto and Bayer can also be held legally accountable in South America, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights also confirmed to the ARD. That such lawsuits also reach German courts is only a matter of time.
