The boom in soy planting in Argentina may come back to haunt farmers years later, a conservation group has warned.
The concentration on one crop type exposes the country to extensive damage to the land as well as social displacement, apart from the financial risks associated with putting all their eggs in one basket, conservation experts told Inter Press Service (IPS) news.
Jorge Cappato of Fundación Proteger warned that soy farming is very similar to the 'boom and bust' model adopted by the fishing, mining and logging industries.
Currently, more than half the country's cultivated land, or 16.6 million hectares, are used to grow soy, at the expense of other crops and livestock rearing, Cappato said.
Farmers, in the face of enormous profits, are unlikely to stop their expansion, Cappato said, adding that Argentina's wheat and milk production may soffer as a result.
Soy planters have also taken over land used for family agriculture and belonging to indigenous peoples.
The country is estimated to have lost 2.5 million hectares of native forests in the past nine years, mostly due to soy planting, according to a Greenpeace representative.
Glyphosate, the herbicide used in combination with transgenic soy, pollutes groundwater, and aerial spraying is becoming a health hazard for thousands of rural people.
Last year, 180 million litres of Glyphosate was sold in Argentina, compared to just1 million litres in the early 1990s, Agronomist Walter Pengue, a researcher with the Ecology of Landscape and the Environment Group (GEPAMA) at the University of Buenos Aires, told IPS.
According to Pengue, "Johnson grass" or "Aleppo grass," a weed that is becoming resistant to glyphosate, has already appeared in six provinces.
Now, farm groups are considering using stronger herbicides whose use was discontinued in the 1980s as it was considered too toxic.
Furthermore, the soil is becoming less fertile, even with large quantities of fertiliser, conservation experts said.