Vandana Shiva: With Good Seeds, We Create Paradise on Earth

"She believes that nothing less than the future of humanity rides on the outcome."

Vandana Shiva is an India eco-warrior who fights against globalization and the use of genetically modified crops.

She describes the battle against agricultural biotechnology as a global war against a few giant seed companies on behalf of the billions of farmers who depend on what they themselves grow to survive.

Shiva believes that nothing less than the future of humanity rides on the outcome.

Wydia Angga caught up with her during a recent visit to Jakarta and asked her what she thought about moves to create a closer ASEAN economic community in our region of the world.

“I think in my mind, when Asia gets organized to produce alternatives then the world will have many alternatives because Asia is the home of the richest bio-diversity of the world. Asia’s is the home of rice, the main staple. So whether it comes to culture and bio-diversity, Asia has a lot to give. But we have been divided by imperialism of various kinds – into Middle East, Central Asia, South East Asia, West Asia, East Asia – we’re not allowed to think of ourselves as one.”

“Asia becomes a place where this multiple levels of diversity and unity together. Allow us to create economies centered on the seeds and bio-diversity by our own people, rather than all of us being made dependent on seeds produced by industry - where they get richer and richer, farmers get poorer and poorer by the year and our children’s diet get poorer. We cannot separate the status of our farmers and the status of our children anymore. And Asia is now becoming the capital of diabetes.”

Q. You are dubbed as the “Eco Goddess” and you said that genetically-modified or GM seeds as “seeds of slavery”. Why?

“Well the reason why GM seeds are “seeds of slavery” is because the corporation admitted it. The reason they will do genetic engineering is to own and patent the seeds. To patent seeds mean you prevent farmers from saving seeds. Monsanto is on record saying this 1995, said that ”We were patients, diagnosticians and physicians all in one in writing the Intellectual Property Right to the World Trade Organisation” and they define the problem. And for them the problem was farmers’ save seeds. And the solution was farmers should not be allowed to save seeds, but they must buy seeds from Monsanto every year. That is seed slavery.”

Q. Back in 1982, you founded Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology. This promotes biodiversity, conservation and small farmers’ rights. And you also push for women’s participation in this area. How do you see your organisation 5-10 years from now?

“The next 10 years will be critical because there’s a huge contest between the violence, dictatorship, surveillance, culture of pushing GMO at any cost. Wikileaks has shown us that even governments were identified to be threatened if we said we don’t want GMOs. We know that scientists, including me, are threatened because we do independent assessments. I’ve done independent assessment on the impact on soil of cotton, or the impact on farmers of the monopoly of Bt cotton.”

“The majority of farmers who committed suicide in India, the figure is now 300 thousand, not an accidental correlation because Bt cotton seeds are more costly and they need more chemical. An industry that sells miracle… of GMOs feeding the world, stopping chemical… but GMOs have not increased food production, do not increase yield and increase chemical. The reality is, that it’s a failed technology… but there’s a market to be grabbed. So they will get more violent. On the other hand, initiatives like us, like the Seed Freedom Movement globally, is showing that saving seeds protecting bio-diversity, we produce more food, we produce more nutrition, we create happier society, we literally create paradise on earth.”
 
“When the farmers and young people become farmers in a community of good food, there is a whole different relationship created. What we’re doing is shaping living economies, democracy and cultures – compared to the killing economies that are destroying the bees, the butterflies, the worms, the farmers. It’s killing democracy because neither the farmers nor societies are being allowed to choose their path. Global corporate is writing the laws everywhere on seeds. And it’s also destroying cultures because when you threw many people out of work as the displacement of farmers is happening, then you build the tendency to break down.”

“The Syrian protest started with farmers because they have drought. The Egyptian protest started because of the price of bread. We forget that beyond the point, destroying the capacity of farmers to produce food, the capacity of society to have access to good healthy affordable food is at the root of disintegration of society. Food is not a luxury, food is the very foundation of our being.”

Q. You also promote organic farming. How would that save the world?

“Bio-diversed intensive organic farming produces more food and nutrition per acre. We can feed two times the world’s population; we can feed on existing farmland, 14 billion people, if we intensify bio-diversity. Get rid of chemicals, intensify ecology rather than toxics, intensify people’s creativity rather than capital inputs and create short change and local distribution system because everyone must eat. Surely there should be a local market for organic, rather than a globalised system of trade. So organic farming is the answer to the crisis of hunger, the crisis of malnutrition, the crisis disease and the crisis of unemployment. “

• India
• Vandana Shiva
• eco warrior
• GM
• Wydia Angga KBR