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America were melting. By 2006, together with the United States, where GMO Monsanto soybeans dominated, Argentina and Brazil accounted for more than 81 % of world soybean production, thereby ensuring that practically every animal in the world fed soymeal was eating genetically engineered soybeans. Similarly, this would imply that every McDonald's hamburger mixed with soymeal would be genetically engineered, and most processed foods, whether they realized or not. 20 Let Them Eat Soybeans! As the GMO soybean revolution destroyed traditional agricultural production, Argentines faced a dramatic change in their available diet. Furthermore, widespread soybean-based monoculture left the population desperately vulnerable to the national economic depression which hit Argentina in 2002. Previously in tough times, farmers and even ordinary city dwellers could grow their own crops to survive. But that was no longer possible under the transformation of Argentina's agriculture into industrial agribusiness. As a result, hunger spread across the land, just as the economic crisis worsened. Fearing food riots, the national government, aided by Monsanto and the giant international soybean users such as Cargill, Nestle, and Kraft Foods, responded by giving out free food to the hungry. Meals made from soybeans were thus distributed with the secondary motive of fostering wider domestic consumption of the crop. A national campaign was put in motion urging Argentines to replace a healthy diet of fresh vegetables, meat, milk, eggs and other products with ... soybeans. DuPont AgriSciences created a new organization with the healthy-sounding name, "Protein for Life:' in order to propagate soybean consumption by humans, even though the soybeans were meant to be grown as animal feed. As part of the campaign, DuPont gave out food fortified with soybeans to thousands of Buenos Aires poor. It was the first time ever in any country that a population had directly consumed soybeans in such large quantities. The Argentines had now become guinea pigs in more ways than one. 21
