From the March 2008 Idaho Observer:
Brazilians destroy GM crops
South America, particularly Argentina and Brazil, have been the testing grounds for GM since the mid 90s when the technology was emerging for food crops. The first was GM soy. Forests were cleared to plant the crop and heavy use of chemicals made people and animals sick. Chemical overspray has also been damaging other food crops and native plants. Many of the more effective acts of civil disobedience in the last decade have emanated from South America, including the nationwide protests that returned kidnapped Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to power in April, 2004. The Venezuelan people foiled a CIA-led coup attempt to replace populist Chavez with a corporatist puppet. In 2000, Bolivians took to the streets and regained control of their water from the Bechtel corporation. Now Agence Presse France (AFP) reports that Brazilians are organizing against Monsanto.
March 10, 2008—Around 300 women rural residents in Brazil burst into a property owned by the U.S. company Monsanto and destroyed a plant nursery and crops containing genetically modified corn, their organization said.
The women were protesting what they saw as environmental damage by the crops.
They trashed the plants within 30 minutes and left before police arrived at the site in the southern state of Sao Paulo, a member of the Landless Workers’ Movement, Igor Foride, told AFP.
The Brazilian government had "caved in to pressure from agrobusinesses" by recently allowing tinkered crops to be grown in the country, he said.
In Brasilia, a protest by another 400 women from an umbrella group, Via Campesina (the Rural Way), was held in front of the Swiss embassy against Syngenta, a Swiss company that is selling genetically modified seeds in Brazil.
The demonstrators called attention to an October 2007 incident in which private guards working for Syngenta killed a protester taking part in an occupation of land owned by the company.