Evan Abramson

Reportage: A Hunger for Land

Santa Rosa district, San Pedro--October 25, 2008--Landless farmers at a meeting representing several local settlements, where plans are made to invade a nearby property held by an Italian who presumably has no titles to prove its legality. Land invasions by peasant groups have become increasingly frequent, with landless squatters invading and trying to take over soy plantations which they claim are on public land. Since the first soy boom in 1990, nearly 100,000 small-scale farmers have been uprooted from their land and forced to migrate to the slums of the big cities. Paraguay has little industry, however, and 40 percent of the population lives in poverty. The total expulsion of famers due to expanding soy production reaches nine thousand families per year.
Santa Rosa district, San Pedro--October 25, 2008--Landless farmers at a meeting representing several local settlements, where plans are made to invade a nearby property held by an Italian who presumably has no titles to prove its legality. Land invasions by peasant groups have become increasingly frequent, with landless squatters invading and trying to take over soy plantations which they claim are on public land. Since the first soy boom in 1990, nearly 100,000 small-scale farmers have been uprooted from their land and forced to migrate to the slums of the big cities. Paraguay has little industry, however, and 40 percent of the population lives in poverty. The total expulsion of famers due to expanding soy production reaches nine thousand families per year.