Dow Chemical and Dole Fruit companies have never taken responsibility for the deaths caused in Nicaragua during the years when Nemagon agrotoxic was applied.

The transnational corporations ignored the rulings issued by national and international courts, in favor of 10,000 Nicaraguan families affected by Nemagon.
Edgardo Garcia, the secretary general to the Rural Workers’ Association of Nicaragua (ATC), which is member of La Via Campesina, told Real World Radio “These are disposed families, they represent what neoliberalism has defined as spare population. There is more than a generation of rural workers lost by the impacts of Nemagon in our country”.

Cancer, renal problems, malformations and sterility are part of the nightmarish situation left by the banana companies in Central America, said Garcia.

The peasant representative added that despite the families have submitted evidence in US and Nicaraguan courts, the spokespeople of Dole have argued that the judiciary under the Sandinista regime fails to provide guarantees.

Meanwhile, Garcia referred to the problems suffered by the 50,000 Nicaraguan families, who are members of the ATC as a result of the expansion of palm oil and orange plantations – which compete for the best lands – and explained the peasants’ plans to stop the advance of monocultures.

ATC promoted the Food Sovereignty Law, which was already approved, as well as the creation of a National Bank for small farmers, the creation of a land fund to support rural women and reforestation and water conservation programs.

Photo: Real World Radio