Making Peace with the Earth by Marissa Fox

Dr. Vandana Shiva is a world-renowned environmental writer, activist, physicist, and science policy advocate. She is the Director of The Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Natural Resource Policy as well as a leader and board member of the International Forum on Globalization and a founder of Navdanya, an Indian-based non-governmental organization that seeks to preserve the biological diversity of seeds and private local farming. Dr. Shiva has published over 20 books and 500 articles. She has won numerous awards, including the Global 500 Award of the United Nations Environmental Programme in 1993, the Earth Day International Award of the United Nations, and the Right Livelihood Award (also called the “Alternative Nobel Prize”) in 1993. In 2011, Dr. Shiva was named by Forbes magazine as one of the seven most influential women in the world.

And yet, until this past Wednesday night, I had never heard of her.

Dr. Shiva visited a local university to discuss the dangers of corporate monopolies in the agricultural world with a talk entitled “Making Peace with the Earth.” All over the world, large corporations are attempting to control monopolies on the very things that build life: land, soil, seeds, and even water. According to Dr. Shiva, farmers are losing their land, people are losing their rights, and corporate control results in debt, poorer nutrition, and harmful pollution.

What struck me most is how very little I know about these matters – worse, how very little I hear about them.

Monsanto is a biotech agriculture company that provides genetically altered seeds, like BT cotton, to farmers. But biotech seeds, according to Dr. Shiva, have only had two results: when you create seeds that are resilient to herbicides, you get to spread more poison on them, or you genetically alter plants to produce toxins that repel insects. But the genetically modified plants are not as disease resistant as they are advertised, and farmers go back to Monsanto with the need for pesticides. Monsanto offers loans to help farmers pay for the expenses. Studies also report deaths of livestock and bees when they consume the toxic plants.[i]

Genetically engineered seeds allow for patents, so that they companies control the development, use, storage, and sale of the seeds. According to Dr. Shiva, “When Monsanto gets a patent, a farmer saving seed is treated like a thief…A farmer whose field is contaminated by a genetically engineered seed that Monsanto has sold through pollination or wind, that farmer who is a victim of pollution is also treated like a thief.” Farmers in both America and Canada have been sued by Monsanto for illegally having possession of the genetically engineered seeds.[ii]

In a circle of debt, pesticides, and land loss, over two hundred thousand Indian farmers committed suicide in the last thirteen years.[iii] In just one region of India, 1,300 cotton farmers committed suicide in 2006. Many of these farmers drink pesticides.[iv] America has also had its own wave of farmer suicides.

To combat corporations like Monsanto and give rights back to the farmers, Navdanya International (founded by Dr. Shiva and others) works to protect biodiversity in agriculture. Navdanya, meaning “nine seeds,” sets up community seed banks and trains farmers in sustainable agriculture. It is also a women-centered movement, valuing biological and cultural diversity around the world. From Navdanya’s mission statement: “Biodiverse small organic farms increase productivity, improve rural incomes and strengthen ecological security. Large-scale industrial monocultures displace and dispossess small farmers and peasants, destroy the environment and create malnutrition and public health hazards.”

Dr. Vandana Shiva promotes ancient Vedic traditions that support the natural balance of Mother Earth centering on two basic principles: Sustainability, making peace with Mother Earth. Justice, making peace among people. She doesn’t use the terms “global warming” or “global cooling.” Instead, Dr. Shiva refers to “Climatic Chaos,” or the imbalance of the natural processes of the world. The fights against the corporations have only just begun. She concluded her talk with the words, “You cannot solve your problems using the same mindset that created them.”

To learn more about Dr. Vandana Shiva, you can visit her website here: http://www.vandanashiva.org/

To learn more about Navdanya International and the need for biodiversity, you can visit the website here: http://www.navdanya.org/home