An article on The Guardian’s Global Development Professionals Network looks at how some smallholder farmers in Paraguay are holding back against the spread of soy production and continuing to practice agroforestry.

Vicki Hird from the Friends of the Earth writes how vast soy monocultures have taken over major agricultural and forested areas agriculture in South America; in 2006 soy production covered about 1.6 million hectares but in 2013 it was around 3.5m hectares.

Farmers Sixto Alado and Victorino Gimenes Roa are among a growing community of farmers resisting soy farming, instead multi-cropping nuts with fruit trees and cassava in agroforestry systems. The farmers believe chemical contamination and water extraction for soy growing is threatening their productive and diverse agroforestry systems.

“Our farms and our families work together – we want to work and to thrive and be healthy – and that means protecting the trees and the soil and the water. Without that we have nothing. Soy gives nothing and loses everything,” say Sixto and Victrino.

The article goes on to discuss how the smallholder farmers who refuse to sell up are left battling impacts from adjoining soy production, including chemical pollution, health problems, out-migration to the cities and the closure of shops and services.

Read the full story: Big soy: small Paraguayan farmers fighting back against global agribusiness