7 peasant organizations throughout Argentina. The resulting Movimiento Nacional Campesino Indigena (National Indigenous Peasant Movement) is an organization of more than 20,000 families, both indigenous people and smallholders. MOCASE also is a member of the Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Organizaciones del Campo (Latin American Coordination of Agrarian Organizations) as well as La Vía Campesina, a transnational peasant alliance. The national Ministry of Human Rights summarized the essence of the Santiago del Estero agenda’s challenge to human rights as “the indiscriminate advance of the agricultural frontier via soybean production is a threat not only to real possession rights but also the environmental assets of rural communities” (Lapegna, 2013). Without intervention, the increasing soybean production will continue to be a threat to human rights and indigenous communities. La Vía Campesina developed the Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples over 20 years, which the United Nations debated for six years, finally adopting it in 2018. The resulting UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) aims to protect those who have been historically discriminated against, like the indigenous and peasant workers, in particular those who are susceptible to the consequences of climate change and deforestation. However, in 2014, a UN Special Rapporteur recognized that governments may be unwilling to allocate resources for the betterment of indigenous people or they may not have the necessary resources to do so (Golay, 2019). Because there are many different organizations involved in UNDRIP and it draws from other documents, the Convention on Biological Diversity, for instance, it is important for the Argentine government to clearly define agencies that are responsible for certain objectives and to provide resources, like training and funding, to government officials and organizations. The Argentine government should strive to achieve the objectives delineated in UNDRIP to promote the social and economic development of peasants and indigenous people and work with the UN if the country does not have the resources necessary to accomplish these goals. Mitigating the Spread of Genetically Modified Soybeans Although genetically modified crops are vital to the Argentine economy, the Argentine government needs to have regulations in place to ensure that genetically modified crop cultivation practices do not harm other crops. Additionally, these regulations should ensure that the smallholders are not further threatened by the concentration of power and farming practices of the multinationals growing the genetically modified crops. CONABIA was formed within the SAGyP in 1991 to regulate, evaluate, and monitor developing activities with genetically modified organisms. CONABIA is responsible for authorizing requests to develop or utilize genetically modified crops. The organization is made up of members from both the private and public sectors, many of whom are involved in biotechnology within the agricultural communities, introducing potential conflicts of interest. The Argentine government should develop a more concrete selection process for CONABIA to lessen the potential for conflicts of interest, which would allow CONABIA to monitor genetically modified soybeans more transparently. With the genetic modification of soybeans, farmers not only obtain a greater yield but also save valuable resources that would have been spent protecting the crops from pests, but only those who can afford to invest in genetically modified crops reap the benefits. Genetically modified crops can grow with less rainfall and are more resistant to insect predation, resulting in increased yield per hectare. They also have greater simplicity as the soybeans are herbicideresistant. Soybeans are genetically modified to withstand Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide. Monsanto is one of the larger players responsible for the dissemination of genetically modified soybeans in Argentina, with the aid of Argentine agricultural actors. To spread the herbicides on the crops, corporations often use a large tractor that has arms with nozzles, which can cause the agrochemicals to drift to fields where the herbicide is not intended. In one instance, peasant farmers suffered at the beginning of 2003, when companies sprayed large amounts of the herbicide and destroyed nearby cotton that the farmers had planned to
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