Monsanto and Argentina

0:11 Hi, everyone. This is Carmen and Christina and this is Historia's Unknown, a podcast where we talk about Latin American history. Sometimes it's horrible and deals with heavy topics like racism, corruption, and genocide. But more than that, it's also about resistance, power and community. And this is more horrible things. Oh no, we're continuing the journey of Monsanto. Last episode we did a brief overview into what Monsanto is, their history, history of the evil things they've done, only some of the things they've done, not all, of course, And this was going to be Monsanto and Latin America, but it's become more like Monsanto and Argentina. Interesting. Yeah, sometimes you start researching one thing and then you just kind of, yeah, you gotta narrow it down it. Remember in middle school when you were learning how to write essays, and they're like, you start at the top and then you would make like a funnel, narrow and narrow. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, that's basically what happened today. We're just going to get right into it. Let's do it. In the last episode, I briefly mentioned round Up very briefly, and that's going to be a key player in today's episode because that was like a key thing and the mass destruction of oh America. Yeah, just like you know, the destroying the land and yeah, making people sick. So a little bit more about roundup.

1:43 Round Up is the brand name of an herb side produced by Manzanto, which we said last episode, and then Mansanto was acquired by Bear in twenty eighteen, so now it's a product of Bear. Before twenty ten, it was mostly made up of glyphosate, and they panted this back in nineteen seventy. Some sources said ninety seventy three, other said nineteen seventy four, nineteen seventies. This is also when they began to mass produce it. And now the main ingredients are hard things to say. The basically a salt that is made of glaphosa, and then this other thing that I'm not going to try and pronounce. Okay, poea is what it the abbreviation of it, but maybe I should try no, no again, poly ethos dilated tallow a mean wow, whatever it was, it was amazing the when you said that, right. The patent expired in two thousand and since then it's been sold. A version of round Up has been sold by many companies. In hundreds of products or sorry, the glafosa itself also Monsanto. Monsanto made roundup right, But then they also produce seeds that grow into plants that are tolerant to round up, called round up ready crops. This seed was patented, which is like the first time that like a seed I think is patented, a genetically interindeered seed. This is another controversy that we

3:13 just simply don't have time to get into. But basically, these round up ready crops or seeds would be sold to farmers or given sometimes like in the cases of a natural disaster, they would get to say, oh, look at us helping these pores by giving them these seeds. But then the controversy is that the farmers weren't allowed to save the seeds to like use to plant later. So because this is how you like save money when you're farming, Like you plant your seeds, but then you'll like, I don't know, save whatever and replant it, right, Yeah, And so with Monsanto, there's a contract that is signed where they are not allowed to do this, making them have to repurchase these seeds every single crop season, yeah, which is like now there's no get out of the hole.

4:00 With mozzano. There's no it makes them dependent on Montana. Yes, yes, and this is all intentional. Took all the restraint in the world to not cut you off and say this first I saw you, I saw you trying. Yeah, like the mean I saw your face. Yeah, so thank you for letting me finish that to say then repeat it in a more succinct manner. That's what we do, so what we do. So that's one controversy which we simply don't have time to get into. But it's like it's fucked up in places like Haiti. These places become like yeah, dependent on mazanto, like you already said. Anyway, the other problem now is that these round of bready crops are also now becoming resistant to round up itself, causing farmers to dump even more pesticides on them, which then is like, now these are like super weeds. Yeah, they're like using you know, quadruple the amount of pesticides. Other problem again, this is just like problem out their problem. That's the word problem man. Another problem is that the pesticides are being spread in larger amounts, and these are largely cantoristic pesticides.

5:06 They're terrible, terrible, and they are so terrible for everything, the environment, everything, the people, everyone, everything. Yeah. A two seventeen study found that Americans exposure to glyphosate grew by about five hundred percent since roundup ready GMO crops were introduced in the US in nineteen ninety six. Glyphosate is most widely used as an agricultural chemical, so the pesticide, and a two sixteen study found that in the US, no pesticide has come remotely close to such intensive and widespread use, meaning Glaphyza is the most widely used right and so in the US glavays a use has risen over three thousand percent since rounder bready crops were introduced in the in nineteen ninety six. Most GMO crops in the US, including more than ninety percent of corn and soy, are generally engineered to tolerate glefasate, and one point eight million tons of clevas was used from nineteen seventy four two twenty fourteen, and this is the US alone. Worldwide, nine point five million tons of chemicals have been sprayed on fields, and this is enough to spray nearly half a pound of roundup on every cultivated acre in the world.

6:26 A lot. Yeah. And like I said in part one, when Beyer bought out Monsanto, they were facing over eleven thousand, two hundred lawsuits over round up, claiming that roundup caused cancer. The first of all these lawsuits was Johnson versus Monsanto, and this is Dwayne Lee. Johnson is the plaintiff in this case. He sprayed hundreds of gallons of roundup during his time as the as the groundskeeper of an elementary school in Benetia, California. This happened at least once that he can recall, but it probably happened more than that on a specific day. What if his sprayers broke and he ended he ended up drenched in roundup? And he did wear like PPE he wore you know those like taiek suits. There are like these white suits that you put on over your clothes. The suits are not like plastic, They're kind of like they feel a little like felty, like I don't know really, Yeah, I've used them for work.

7:29 Oh like, Oh, I've used during COVID. We had them when they finally decided to give us a PPE because at first it was only for the hospitals, even though we were a COVID testing site anyway, right right, right, right, right, right right, So, yeah, they're not plastic. If they get liquid on them, it does get soaked through. And so he ended up drenched in round up. Oh my god. Terrible. So after this happened, at the age of forty two, he was diagnosed with on Hodgkin lymphoma and he and it took him a while to get to this point, but he believes that it was caused by a round up. It got so bad that he was like, first it started as a small rash and then like basically parts of his skin like were falling off. It was like it was bad. Oh my god. He finally went to the doctor. The doctor. The doctors were like, were you ever around pesticides? And then he was like, oh my god, yes for a whole So then he was like, I'm gonna sue because he was never told the dangers of this chemical he was writing with like if he knew it had been warned, maybe he would be able to take more precautions. Yeah, Like maybe he would think about is his job right for me? Right exactly? Something? Yeah, yeah.

8:45 And as a result of this trial, Bear was ordered to pay two hundred and eighty nine million in pernitive damages and composite compensitory damages. And then in twenty eighteen they appeal. After a bunch of appeal, it went down to seventy eight million dollars that they or no, no, no, twenty one million dollars that they were going to pay him. In twenty seventeen, he was given six months to live because of how bad his cancer was. Despite that, he attended a screen of a documentary called Into the Weeds in twenty twenty three. Into the Weeds is his story, basically, it's it's the story of his fight against Monsanto. You can find this documentary on Apple TV, Spectrum Voodoo, also apparently Amazon Video, Google pay and as a DVD you can buy it. But he had tendered a screening. It was a one time screening of the movie in theaters on October third, twenty twenty three. And I haven't been I didn't find that he passed away. I think he's still alive. Really, look at him fighting, fighting the good fight. Yeah.

9:49 And Dwayne Lee Johnson's win against the corporation was huge, but it also confirmed something that a lot of people were already suspecting. Already knew that the chemicals being you use as pesticides were killing us too, as in everyone that was near them. And one country was very very much affected by this, and that is Argentina. And we did mention this briefly last episode when I started to go off on this like little side tangent about the movie when Evil Larns. Yeah. Yeah, because like we said, we love a whrror, a movie with a social political commentary. Yes, and that movie. After reading all this very much makes sense to me that it's about pesticides commentary on pesticide use in Argentina. But let's get into that. Since a round up ready soybeans were introduced to Argentina in nineteen ninety six, the crop took over the country. Almost all of the soy grown in Argentina is Monzanto round our breddy beans, and soy has taken over sixty percent of farmland in Argentina. Sixty yeah, sixty percent. Wow. And this is also the same in Brazil Uruguay bayde why Oh soy has become the main crop and all the soybeans are a round up brending soybeans. Between nineteen ninety six and twenty sixteen, the use of roundup in Argentina jumped from and numbers are coming, so I thought i'd warn you.

11:18 The use of round up in Argentina jumped from nineteen point nine million liters to two hundred thirty seven point six million liters three hundred thirty something two hundred thirty seven two hundred thirty seven point six million. Wow. I still told me, and I still didn't get it right. I know that is in case you need it in another format. That is a one thousand eighty nine percent increase. Damn, Like that's insane. During that same time period, farmland for soybeans increased from fourteen point seven million eight to forty seven million acres, a two hundred and sixteen percent increase.

12:07 Too much. Wow, And all those all you soy motherfreckers. This is the renon GM technologies, this monsanto like agricultural technologies. The use of all this have resulted in economic benefits for Argentina because now soybean is like a major commodity being exported out of the country. So this has resulted in like an estimated one point eight million job growth in Argentina. And it sounds like a good thing, but it came with severe consequences. It always does, and it's always the most vulnerable. So the severe the people who face these consequences was the rural farming areas of the country, especially the Gordoba region of Argentina. In these areas there has been an increase in birth defects and fertility, steel births, miscarriages, chronic respiratory illnesses, and cancer, and in fact, in these parts of the country, cancer deaths have more than doubled. Wow.

13:15 But of course, if you ask Menzanto, they have deemed their pesticides safe to use or officially not likely to be carcinogenic to humans. Way please, wow. And the EPA has gone back and forth on this a few times. So in nineteen eighty six, glacosate was initially classified as Group C, so this is a possible human carcinogen. Later it was moved down to Group D, not classifiable as a human carcinogen, so they're saying we can't classify this as cancer causing in people. In nineteen ninety one it was moved down to Group E evidence of non carcinogen city I guess basically that there's no evidence that causes cancer in humans. That was in nineteen ninety one. In twenty fifteen and twenty seventeen it was classified as not likely to be carcinogenic to humans, but of course other groups like the International Agency for Researcher and Cancer classified it in Group two, probably carcinogenic to humans, and in twenty seventeen, the state of California has it listed has glad to state listed as known to the state to cause cancer. Wow. But these motherfuckers the EPA, and like, it's like, how can you trust the EPA when you have a revolving DAR or yeah, yes, of Monsanto executives going from Monsando CEOs down to EPA administrator Santo. So

14:51 it's like, of course they're going to label it non concert causing, like they want to make money. Some of the tests that were conducted by country factors for Monzanto to prove whether or not it was carcinogenic were We're found to be fraudulent of course, yeah, and Monzanto stated that they repeated the tests with similar results in a non fraudulent manner. But again they cannot be trusted right. A report by the Ministry of Health in Cordoba, Argentina revealed that deaths from cancerous tumors are double the national average in areas where genetically engineered crops are grown. Damn, that's a lot. Yeah. The highest rate of death occurs in the Bamba Gringa area, where most GMO crops are grown and most of the chemicals that ground up are used.

15:46 The average for cancer deaths is one hundred and fifty eight per one hundred thousand inhabitants. That's the normal amount, but in areas like Bampa Gringa it's too, two hundred and sixteen to two hundred and thirty per one hundred inhabitants. Wow, so again a big jump. Other regions in Cordoba also have cancer deaths well above the national average, ranging in like two hundred per one hundred thousand inhabitants. And these are also statistics from the report on Cancer in Cordova from two thousand and four to two thousand and nine.

16:28 And it was done by the Provincial Tumor Registry and the Department of Statistics and Census, so not Monsanto. It was done by Argentina themselves. These groups in Argentina. Also researchers at Rio Quarto have studied the people of Cordoba for eight years and they confirmed in fifteen scientific publications that people exposed to pesticides suffer genetic damage and are more prone to cancer. But despite all these studies and reports that have proven cancer has sky rocketed, the government hasn't done anything about it. Why because they're in Mantanto's pocket. Yeah, they're making a ton of money from this. Yeah. The people of these regions are the ones that have been forced to fight against this, and it's like always like we say, they weren't looking to become activists, they were forced to become activists. One of these people is Sofia Gottica.

17:37 Sofia Gottica, she was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in twenty twelve for her fight against the use of tastic pesticides in Afgentina and trigger warnin for the death of an infant. But for her, it all began with the death of her daughter, who died at three days old from kidney That's like rare, right for very a Newberry, Yeah, very rare if you're not in this part of Agentina. Oh wow. Yes. So when her daughter died, Sophia didn't make the connection right away, but then she started noticing that her neighbors, friends, family started having health problem after health problem, and she began to wonder, and she noticed they all have one thing in common. Their town. It do sangle, it to sing, it to seng goot. Oh, one of those is right anyway.

18:41 In their town, they are surrounded. Oh, I can talk. In their town, they are surrounded by soybean fields on all directions. They're basically in the middle of soybean farmland. And so these soybean fields are routinely sprayed with one thing, round up. And the roundup is sprayed aerially and indiscriminately, just up in the air. Yeah. Because it's sprayed down, it goes everywhere. It drives into town. There's no way to avoid it. And they're surrounded, so it's just impossible to avoid. Because on top of that, the town, like literally the houses that started at the town, they are five yards from where the soybean fields start. Five yards. Yeah, like the houses, the first set of houses on the edge of town. That's how close they are to the fields. Wow, that's pretty close. Yeah. And so after the death of her infant daughter, she started noticing all of her sick neighbors how close they were to the fields. She started going door to door, and her going door to door asking people that ended up becoming the and get ready for this million dollar word that I can't pronounce epi epidem epology. Oh yeah, it was the first epidemiological study.

20:13 I said it wrong again, epidemiological theory. Yeah, yeah, that was right. It was the first study of that sort. And wow, the region of Argentina in regards to pesticides at her findings shocking. She found that neurological and respiratory disease birds effects and infant mortality and cancer rates were forty one times higher in her town than the national average. How much forty one times higher than the average? Whoa, whoa, that's a lot. Yeah, tell me about it. But she wasn't down there. She started a group called the Mothers of Itusango Argentina and their Mothers of Group I love I love it, I love it, I love it. Come back to Maldoiselle la mao. Yeah, yeah, more mothers of something something like please. Yes, that's when you know that this is a legit activist group when they are the mothers of something. So yeah, the Mothers of Itusango and they set off to stop the use of these toxic chemicals.

21:23 They did the door to door survey. Then they contacted the Argentina environmental organizations and they initiated this thing called the Stop Spraying campaign. There were protests and efforts to educate the public. They started blockades of the sprain machines. Love me some blockades. I love a good blockade. They protested at the Ministry of Agriculture and the Health Ministry. Love it loves this yere. They took sick people to the ministry and like, see, look what you're doing. This is you, this is all you reminds me of the AIDS and this activism here when they laid on the front of the steps of Like, was it the White House that I remember something like that? I think so, I think so. Eventually, this all led to led to then President Christina Kirschner to commission the Ministry of Health to conduct a separate investigation. This is now two thousand and eight, and this new investigation confirmed the findings of the door to door surveying of the Mothers of Itusango, and then this eventually led to Sophia and the Mothers succeeding and getting a municipal ordinance banning spraying at a distance of fewer than twenty five hundred meters from houses. Good. Yes.

22:43 And then in twenty ten, the Supreme Court reversed the burden of proof, so residents no longer had to prove the harmfulness of sprain. The government and Swobean growers just had to like not spray in these areas. They had to spray their way. Okay. I almost thought you were going to say something be bad, and I was like, wait, no, this is good. It's gonna get bad. Oh what? Because of course, these first these victories came with the price. The residents of Itu Sango had to sign a waiver agree not to sue. Yeah, in order to get drinking water that wasn't contaminated with pesticides. Sophia herself faced threats.

23:24 Someone broke into her house with the weapon and told her not to fuck with the soybeans. What the hell? Yeah, this is very like like the Coca Cola episode where they hired what are they called, I'm sorry, it's not really dumb right now. Was because I'm you know, like it's because you're tired. The militia groups. Yeah, they yas, Yeah, there you go, that's word where they hired the giddy Yas to threaten was or was it like malicious? It was milicious or some shit, but it wasn't entired to military. Yes, they have a name that I cannot remember right now. Anyway, they there'shbecurity forces. Yeah, but for private people, contractors something like that. Okay, but it was that anyway, point being that they hired them to threaten and scare all the union organizing paramilitary Oh my god. Yes, yeah, and let's not forget that Latin America is one of the most deadliest places to be an activist, especially an environmental activists.

24:28 So yeah, she also got threatening calls threatening her children. Oh no, they'd be like, you want one less child? And then that's terrible. When she tried to go to the police, they didn't do anything. Of course, this is from an interview she did back then, but she said, I had just come home. I had just come back from the corner store, and I never locked my door. I always just come and go in our neighborhood. And I came in and he followed behind me and put the gun against my head and in my kitchen and said I need to stop fucking with the SOI he made me sit down in a chair. He said not to leave, so I didn't leave. I waited until he drove away, and then I went to the police. Wow, fucked up. But none of this stopped her. Since her journey into activism began, the mothers of Itusango have been to Brazil at Guador, Paraguay and Chile to share their experience and teach others had to defend their rights against Monsanto. Amazing, amazing, but wows I love that for them. Also, it's important to know that these wins happened in the core, but many times that these rulings are just simply ignored. Yeah. Yeah, that reminds me of the Espoquitos episode that we that you did on the survivor of that extreme violence from that son of a political like government leader in Oh yeah yeah, and how it went to that international court

26:00 right and like there's still nothing came of it. Yes, the case of Linda Loaisa so In. In January twenty thirteen, activists Oscari Vintensei was standing in a field next to his friend's house. He was waving a printed paper of a ruling that stated pesticides were not to be sprayed within one thousand meters of homes in the town of Alberti. The tractor driver just ignored him and doused him with pesticide and then when out it is like a death, Like that's intentionally trying to like hurt someone. Wow. Yeah, at this incident went viral on YouTube because the whole thing was recorded. Oh wow, but from two thousand and eight to twenty eleven, repeat I said that weird from two thousand and eight, like I'm drunk or something. From two doan eight to eleven, Okay, t go on. From two thousand eight to twenty eleven, no one was punished for violating federal Sprain rules. So it's the then, what's the point of having this ruling? Yeah, like what was the point of all this? And like it like at some point it all seems like, oh my god, it's like pointless, but no, these people keep fighting. It's also like the principle of it all. Yes, I don't know.

27:20 I laugh. It's just like it's just because because it's like the audacity and like the absurdity that it like how are these people held accountable? But still like the fight never stops exactly. Fabianto Massi was a firm worker from Bassa, Vilbaso Andrios, Argentina, one of the places most affected by pesticide use. His job was to fill the crop dusters tanks as fast as possible so they could keep flying and spraying pesticides. He would end up drenched in the pesticides, especially round up because again this is the one that's used the most, so he was never taught how to handle them safe. He was never given gear on like preventing him from being drenched in these pesticides.

28:06 He was never told about how dangerous they were. After years of working like this, at age forty seven, he basically became like a living skeleton. Oh my god, look up, Fabian Tomasi. I could easily send you the pictures, but they're all like computer Fabian Tomasi, just like it sounds. Oh wow, yeah wow. He did not always look like that. He was basically a living skeleton. At age forty seven, he could barely swallow. Oh my god. He could go to the bedroom on his own. He was diagnosed with polyneurope neuropathy, and this is a condition where the peripheral nerves in the body stop working. The peripheral nerves for those that don't know are the nerves that are not part of your brain or spinal cord, so all the other nerves in your entire higher body. Wow. Having this causes weakness, numbness, burning pain, until you become until you basically can't move like and his diagnosis was attributed to the exposure to all these toxic chemicals by doctors. He did eventually die of this in September, on September seventh, twenty eighteen. He was fifty three years old. Oh my god, that's like relatively young and then out of for his last years to be like that, that's so so that painful. Yeah.

29:34 But even in all the pain that he was in, he made sure to not keep quiet about pesticides and the danger to his community. He spoke at schools and all the community spaces he could. He shared his story everywhere that he could. He was the main person in a book called en Venanados The Poisoned Ones that came out twenty thirteen by journalists Patricio la Seggi. He's the cover on this book too. And then just a few months before his death, he wrote a letter to the school children of his hometown in Basaville, basil, and I'm going to try and read this. I already read it once, so I this time you want me to read it.

30:16 I cry the first time, but I think I'll be fine because I already read it. But warning, because this is sad man, so you are children. But I had to explain something very difficult to you. My story is not a nice one. You can see that I am sick, and I want you to know why I used to work in the soybean fields. I flew the planes that fumigate the soybean plants. To fumigate is to spray poison on the plants. This poison doesn't kill the soybeans, it kills everything else. The fields are full of different plants that grow naturally without asking for anyone's permission, of course, but the men who grow soybeans don't want any of these other plants to grow, so they call all the plants that they don't like weeds, and that's why they poison them to kill them. When I started this job, I didn't quite know what I was doing, and I would ask myself is this good work? But of course, after I got sick, I realized to kill all the forms of life that we don't like is wrong. It's wrong to kill all the quails, the rodents, the daisies, and the songbirds only to grow a single type of plant that makes money. It's wrong because it harms the earth, because the earth needs all of its plants, birds, and critters.

31:33 I'm already gonna cry. And also because it ends up hurting us humans like it hurt me. Even though we seem very different from one another, the animals, plants, and flowers were actually very similar. We're all made of building blocks called cells. So the poison they apply to the plants hurts us too. Plus, those plants and resistant from receiving so much poison, they become harder and harder to kill, so more and more poison has to be used, and that's how more and more people get sick. Did you know it's possible to grow crops without using poison? But they don't do it because they forgot how, and the people who sell the poison don't want them to remember.

32:21 They don't want us to remember that we used to grow beautiful corn and weed without using any chemicals at all. That's why it's important for you, the adults of tomorrow, to know that people and nature had to be friends. If we harm nature, we end up harming ourselves. As you get older and you make decisions about your lives, whether you go to work or continue studying, I hope you'll remember this letter and realize that we the adults did a lot of things wrong, that you shouldn't emulate us, that you can't do well on your path if you harm others. Put simply don't kill. A big hug to you new friends. My name is Fabian Carlos TOMASI. I hope you won't forget me. Oh that was yeah, Oh my god, but so true. I mean, like we are also a part of nature. And this attitude of conquering nature, wanting to destroy nature for capitalism, for power, it comes from colonialism, it comes it comes from the Bible manifest destiny.

33:31 It's like a it's like a you know, Christian concept like this is that they felt like they had the power, uh, and not even the power, but the what is the word like the right that they have the right to control the earth. And it ties to so much of everything that we talked about, and it's going to tie to the Panama Canal that I'm of course the researching because it ties to this belief that that the United States colonial you know, power are better and stronger than the wild savage jungles of Latin America or in this case, the wild savage weeds of Aghadina. It's like we said last episode, at the end of the day, what does all this money mean if the earth is no longer yeah alive, you're stop being sci fi shit like yeah, and he should look up. Well, I'll I'll send you pictures.

34:35 But like Fabianto Massi is one person. But look at him and then look at like pictures of the children born from the birth defects because of Monsanto and round up. It's horrifying, like so so many problems because this is being sprayed and sprayed, and like he said in his letter to all the little school children of his city, of his town, it wasn't always like this. All of you started in nineteen ninety six, and my god, and it's in such a short time span, like it destroyed, has destroyed so much, because really nineteen eighty six is not that long ago. Yeah, like that's a that's a late millennial, you know. Yeah. Having read this and now thinking back to whin evil Lyrics, I'm like, no, I see it now, I see it, And especially because when evil lyrics like you got to watch the movie. But I was gonna say, I gotta watch it. You haven't seen it, Oh we should know. It's so horrible. I don't know if Mammy Well, I mean likes horror movies too.

35:37 I'm like, we should watch it. But is it too slow pace for her? No? Right, no, it's not slow paced at all. Oh God, Anyway, I could see how it is related to all of this now after I've read about this, looked at the pictures and how many people have been gotten sick, and how like there's this wide rule about like, oh, we shouldn't be using this. But then at the end of the day, it's left to the provinces and there's no like, no regulation, no proper regulation, no proper punishment for breaking the rules that were made, like you can't spray this close, and then the people are left to fight for their lives basically, and it's for the royal cells. Yeah, it's in the rural parts, just like the movie. Wow. Yeah. But I was going to end on the note of Fabian Tomasi because it was such a beautiful letter, but I almost forgot to include that, like it may seem like nothing can be done, it may seem like, oh my god, they're just like killing the royal people of Vargentina. But he shared his story till the very end, till the very last moment that he could. That letter is like one of the last things he shared, like with the little school children of his city. Sophia and the mothers continue their fight against Monsanto to this day, and they've had actual winds like outside of court amazing where it can hardly be enforced. But in twenty thirteen, they stopped

37:10 the construction of a new Monsanto building. This building was set to be a corn seed processing plant and it was set to open in twenty fourteen. They began a blockade of the access road to the plant, and they did this for more than five months, Like every single moment of the day, somebody was blocking that road and construction workers could not get through that road to begin to build this plant of evil. For yeah, And this led to the Ministry of the Environment of Argentina to deny Monsanto's environmental impact assessment. So Monsanto had to provide this environmental impact assessment. The ministry said no, this does not pass. This is actually bad. And then finally, after all the protesting in twenty sixteen, Monsanto withdrew from the project.

38:04 They said, we're not doing this anymore because it made it not worth it because of all the outworing. Yes, the reasons they cited were economic developments and the effects of long term protests by the residents. So this is like directly because every single day the mothers and the people they rounded up were blocking that road. Amazing, and Sophia's response to that was, if the resistance stirs from below, it will bring down those above. Hold on, snap snap snap, snap, fucking mic drop, that's what I says. But so true. Yeah, yeah, wow, but wow, but man, Yeah, when I read her letters, I was like, wow, a powerful quot and it's so true and just goes to show what can be done, you know, with the power of community that is so missing so much a lot also from from our lives here, because capitalism is taking over every aspect of our lives, like work, work, work, work. No, when we first launched this podcast, it was going to be called it was capitalism alone. That's right, because everything, it ties into everything, almost everything. You know what I mean yeah, it really does. Wow, it's just amazing words. Oh absolutely, yeah, yeah, but yeah, that is part two. It was going to be Monsanto and Latin America, but it became Monsanto and Argentina. There's

39:37 just a wealth of information and horrors to learn about from Montanto. Yeah, yeah, because this was Arinina alone. But like I said, it was it's the same situation in Paraguay, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, and then even like parts of Mexico and Guatemala. And that is more related to the bees, which we'll get into. Oh and we're going to get into that. That's the next part. Yeah, that's where I'm going to be talking about the bees and Lady Peck. But yeah, anything to add before we go, I just want to say and thank whoever it was that listened to me about trying to get to one hundred ratings on Spotify, because now we have ninety seven. Look at that, We're three away everyway.

40:19 The year is not over yet. We have like two more episodes for you for you all to go and rate us and get us to end, but only go to ratings, okay, please four and above. Anything else to add before we go, No, I guess other than probably more fitting for the episode. But there's been a lot being said on the internet lately that's shot that we need to yup about, some of it involving Mary J. Blige, jay Z. Yeah, a little qtie out there. But the eyebrows stole our hearts with them. Eyebrows. Yeah, okay, eyebrows, I see you. The miller is honestly yeah, made my eyebrows man memories. But yeah, eyebrows. Yeah, we do need to do another episode. Yeah, there's some stuff to yap about.

41:24 If people are interested, then you can sign up for a Pittreon Yeah, where we yap about rates or anything. Christina, it's all that. Oh yeah, I forgot Okay, Well, at a certain tier, you get our bonus episodes, which are our episodes. That's the middle tier, middle tier, and above is the episodes. The first tier is just a shout out, which we're not doing today because I don't have pulled up and AD free yes, ad free listening and a shout out yeah yeah cool, cool, we're doing a lovely job writing Patreon. But anyway, yeah, it's out there if you're interested. But yeah, thank you everyone for listening, and we hope this is one less yestoria unknown for you.

42:15 But also one more thing. I remember, all the homies hate Monsanto. All the homies hate Monsanto. We really need I will be sending stickers out. I know. I said I was going to do one time stickers, but it is quite necessary to send out those stickers. All the homies hate Monsanto. Either all my homies or all the homies. I think either one would sound good? Yeah, which one? Well, well, we'll talk about it, all right. People could oppine. If there's an opinion out there. Our three patron members, let us know one of you, one of you, Yeah, which one sounds better? All right? I almost say spooky. We hope that this was one less estoria unknown for you. Bye bye and