In 1984, Dr Vandana Shiva witnessed
the Bhopal disaster, the leakage of a
pesticide plant that led to over 3,000
deaths. In the same year, in Punjab,
farmers rose in revolt against chemical
farming in a movement known as
the “green revolution”. The uprising
ended in 30,000 deaths with the Prime
Minister, Indira Gandhi, assassinated.
The unrest drove Dr Shiva to write
her book The Violence of the Green
Revolution in 1989, inquiring into
the chaos that the Green Revolution
generated. It was around this time that
she made a commitment to practising
safe and non-violent agriculture, and
promoting environmental activism.
She started what would become
her most successful project to date,
Navdanya, in 1987, following a meeting
where a host of chemical giants rolled
out plans to genetically engineer
seeds. Dr Shiva made a decision to
“save the seeds”, and to establish an
organisation that worked to prevent
their being patented.
Three decades later, Navdanya
continues its global efforts at saving
seeds, training farmers in agroecology
and organic farming. Today, the
organisation has 120 community seed
banks, which store seed varieties to
preserve genetic diversity.
The initiative has also curtailed laws
that prevented farmers from saving
seeds. Seed saving is crucial given that
the international farming industry has
shifted from the annual harvesting of
seeds to purchasing irreproducible
patented seeds.
In Dr Shiva’s most recent book,
Soil, Not Oil, she asserts that 50
percent of the greenhouse gas
emissions leading to climate change
is contributed by industrial globalised
agriculture. Her solution to mitigating
climate change is summed up by one
movement: organic farming.
Dr Shiva submits that organic
farming has the capacity to remove
excess greenhouse gases from the
atmosphere by extracting carbon and“There is no separation between humans and Nature.
We are Earth citizens. What we do to the Earth
determines our wellbeing”
- Dr Vandana Shiva
IMAGE © WIKICOMMONS
Dr Vandana Shiva
SAVING – AND SOWING – THE SEEDS OF CHANGE
Text Sabrine Ong
nitrogen from the air, and delivering
them into the soil. Organic farming
also contributes to sustainable food
security by improving nutrition and
sustaining livelihoods in rural areas,
while reducing vulnerability to climate
change and enhancing biodiversity.
The concept of a deeper, “green”
democracy is founded on her belief
that the planet has its own rights and,
as humans living on its soil, it is
our duty to defend the rights of life
on Earth.
“Representative democracy has
always been limited, and it is now
failing even in its limited form,”
says Dr Shiva in an interview. “From
being of the people, for the people,
by the people, it has become of the
corporations, by the corporations,
for the corporations.”
Her message is very simple:
“There is no separation between
humans and Nature. We are Earth
citizens. What we do to the Earth
determines our wellbeing.” agprofile