ILPC 2026

By the end of November 2017, the EU voted for yet another 5 years to allow EU farmers to use Glyphosate on their lands. The media coverage focused on the question whether Glyphosate would be cancerogenic or not. Lobby groups on both sides tried to convince politicians by pointing out the consequences for EU citizens and farmers, respectively.

The risk assessment in these debates stresses either the consequences for health and wellbeing of the consumers, or the economic losses for the farming industry. This familiar conflict of interests does however not take into account the consequences decision making processes in the global North have for the global South. Glyphosate is an excellent example to discuss how the critiques of the agri-business in the global North tend to systematically exclude  the role the global South plays in the capitalist mode of production and  allows for ‚super-exploitation’ of former colonies. Standard values for Glyphosate differ dramatically between the EU and countries in the global South. This allows for cheap import prices for soy beans, coffee, and other products valued by their EU consumers either for their everyday consumption or as base material for biofuel or beef production.

In this collective paper, the authors attempt to bring together three different pieces of research informed by the sociology of work, human geography, and political sciences. Our aim is to focus on the Brazilian agribusiness. From recent research by Bombardi (2017) we have an exact mapping of how the use of pesticides leads to deadly working and living conditions. We will combine the data gathered in the atlas with chemical production plant sites, and base element suppliers in Brazil; we will analyse how the agribusiness sells their produce using fables on how to improve people’s life while at the same time putting workers and peasantry under toxic pressures..

Our aim is to find out the spatial distribution of workers contributing to the value chain within the agribusiness, using the example of Glyphosate. We will contribute to discussions on workers mobilisation and workers struggles in that we can show how and on which spatial level workers are parted across the land. Is there a shared space the so far parted peasantry shares? If so, how could this possibly inform local communities and activists?

Bombardi, L.M. (2017) Geografia do Uso de Agrotóxicos no Brasil e Conexões com a União Europeia. Laboratório de Geografia Agrária; FFLCH - USP, São Paulo, 2017.