Conference: “From the Wars of the Past to Today’s Agriculture: Pesticides and Dioxins on the Indochinese Peninsula”

Online video conference.

This videoconference will bring together several Professors interdisciplinary research program on the consequences of environmental pollution caused by Agent Orange and by the pesticides used by farmers on the Indochinese Peninsula (PAGOPI). Launched in 2019 with the support of the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme de Montpellier (MSHSUD), this program led to an initial series of research missions in 2019, before being temporarily suspended due to the pandemic in 2020.

Introduced and moderated by historian Pierre Journoud, the lecture will feature Tran To Nga, a Franco-Vietnamese victim of Agent Orange who is fighting not only for herself and her family, but also for hundreds of families devastated by the consequences of chemical warfare in Vietnam. In 2014, Tran To Nga filed a lawsuit against Monsanto and some twenty other chemical companies that produced and marketed the defoliants used during the Vietnam War, including Agent Orange. After a long hiatus, the trial resumes this Monday, January 25.

This lecture provides a better understanding of the impacts of the "chemical warfare" in Vietnam, with a view to drawing conclusions regarding the current use of dioxin and pesticides. 

• Watch the conference online

• Watch the report “Vietnam: Agent Orange Faces French Justice”