The Associated Press Tuesday, June 10, 2008 SAO PAULO, Brazil: Thousands of landless rural workers invaded dams, railways, plantations and corporate headquarters in a wave of protests across eight Brazilian states on Tuesday. Rogerio Homm, a coordinator with the Via Campesina activist group, said the protests are aimed at large corporations that benefit from Brazilian policies favoring agribusiness over small farmers.
"This is a big demonstration on a national level against big multinationals, which are to blame for high food prices," Homm said. "There are only a few companies that control the production of seeds and fertilizers." Homm said the protests are also aimed at electric companies the group accuses of causing environmental problems and displacing people with the huge reservoirs created by hydroelectric dams. Protesters invaded a soy-crushing plant belonging the multinational agribusiness giant Bunge Ltd. in Southern Rio Grande do Sul state and the company said it shut down operations to avoid security problems. The Agencia Estado news service said police fired rubber bullets at the protesters, injuring five, as they entered the Bunge plant. The group said about 600 rural workers briefly occupied the headquarters of Votorantim, an industrial conglomerate in Sao Paulo. In Minas Gerais state, hundreds of workers blocked a railway owned by mining giant Companhia Vale do Rio Doce. Police could not immediately confirm the invasions and calls to Votorantim and Vale were not immediately returned. TV footage showed hundreds of farmworkers protesting at the Sobradinho hydroelectric dam in northeastern Bahia state. Mozart Bandeira director of Chesf, the company that owns the dam, said about 500 people were peacefully protesting in the dam's parking lot. "They are not interfering with operations and we are taking all measures possible to remove them," Bandeira said. The vast majority of Brazil's food supply is produced by large corporations, but on Tuesday, the federal government announced a program to provide small farmers with low-interest loans of 100,000 Brazilian reals (US$61,000) or more to boost production on the country's roughly 1 million family farms. According to the Agrarian Development Ministry, the program seeks to alleviate high prices caused by food shortages worldwide. Associated Press Writer Marcos Sibaja contributed to this report from Brasilia. ~~~ Article Originally Available @: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/06/10/america/LA-GEN-Brazil-Land-Pro...
