Sowing Seeds of Self Reliance

The consequences of giving seed companies a free hand through privatization and deregulation has been increasing the costs of seeds and agrichemicals for farmers, increasing farm debts and increasing crop failure. The removal of the public sector and the undermining of the community in the seed supply have allowed the reemergence of the feudal power of land lords and moneylenders, empowered by global corporations, their products and their capital. ("Seeds of Suicide" - By Vandana Shiva)

One of the most prominent of Gandhi's intellectual heirs is Vandana Shiva, Director of the Research Foundation on Science, Technology, and Natural Resource Policy at Dehra Dun, India. Physicist, philosopher, and feminist, she is a champion of women's rights and environmental justice. She has written more than a dozen books, including Monocultures of the Mind, Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development, and Biopiracy. She is also well-known in India for her grassroots efforts to preserve forests, organize women's networks, and protect local biodiversity.

In her book Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge, Shiva describes patents on seeds and life forms as a new form of colonialism. "Corporations like Monsanto and Syngenta are pirating centuries of farmers' innovation and patenting rice, cotton, mustard, corn, soya and practically all other food crops."

To help farmers, Vandana Shiva started a movement called Navdanya ("nine seeds"). The main aim of the Navdanya biodiversity conservation programme is to rejuvenate indigenous knowledge and culture, support local farmers, rescue and conserve crops and plants that are being pushed to extinction and make them available through direct marketing - through community seed banks and seed exchange networks. The center of Navdanya is Bija Vidjapeeth, where Vandana Shiva runs an experimental organic farm, and an educational facility to teach farmers how to grow biodiverse crops - that is, growing multiple crops - grains, legumes, vegetables - that complement each other. Navdanya has an organic farm spread over an area of 20 acres in Uttranchal, north India. It has created awareness on the hazards of genetic engineering. Time magazine hailed it as "seeds of self reliance". (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1003115,00.html)

A husband-and-wife team, PeÅ Holmquist and Suzanne Khardalian, have made a superb documentary film called "Bullshit" about Vandana Shiva, and her battle supporting the cause of farmers against global multinational corporations. The film shows her being awarded the "Bullshit Prize for sustaining poverty" by Barun Mitra, her adversary, and the director of Liberty Institute, a research organization that promotes free-market economics. Very apt indeed, as Vandana knows the value of "bullshit" as an excellent organic fertilizer and a biofuel.

"What a woman, what strength, what optimism...!" These are the comments by Aftonbladet, a major Swedish evening paper, on Vandana Shiva.