Features
Sowing seeds of revolution
A physicist by profession Dr. Shiva first became interested in the subject as a result of two events which took place in India in the 1980's. In the city of Bhopal there was a tragic explosion at the Union Carbide (now Dow) chemical plant which killed 3,000 people on the night and to date 30,000 have died as a direct result of the incident. At the same time in the Northern Indian state of Punjab the Green Revolution had been introduced. The Green Revolution was basically the introduction of high input farming with a dependence created by the agricultural corporations to supply hybrid seed and chemical seeds to farmers in return for promises of higher yields. The green revolution was also to combat the growing "red revolution" around the world. If farmers were made prosperous then they would be less likely to go down the communist route. The green revolution received the Nobel peace prize but in the 1980's Punjab was a state at war with many lives lost. Twenty years on Dr. Shiva hails genetic engineering as the second green revolution. The same empty promises echo previous promises made, and in reality what it delivers is further loss of control for farmers and increasing monopolies for the giant agricultural corporations bringing us this technology.
Scientific cover-up
If one is to believe the scientific journals, genetic engineering (GE) is doing very well in India. However, very few scientists or agronomists have visited India to see the situation for themselves. Instead they take their data from Monsanto (one of the largest corporations involved in GE) and PR companies. At least 50 studies exist in India carried out by public groups highlighting an overall failure of over 70% of GE trials carried out by Monsanto. Some studies revealed allergic reactions in people in regions where genetically engineered Bt cotton was produced. Also over 1,000 deaths were recorded in sheep that were fed Bt cotton and in one study it was noted that sheep would pass by a field of Bt cotton to graze in non Bt cotton fields. A lot of this research was carried out at the University of Bangalore but when scientists there were brought to the US to visit the headquarters of Monsanto in St Louis, none of the research was published. Dr. Shiva stated that Monsanto started illegal GE trails in India in 1998 and since 2002 the company has been involved in a number of GE trails throughout the country. She is currently involved in court proceedings against them. She criticised the manner in which the GE companies promote and sell their products in India. Corporations go around to each region and buy up seed creating what she calls a "seed famine" leaving farmers with no alternative but to buy seed sold by their companies.
The other tactic adopted by the companies has been to use Indian deities in advertisements to sell their products, so not only are the scientists for hire but so too are the Indian Gods!
Fatal farming policy
In her involvement in the area in the past twenty years one issue which continues to crop up again and again is the high incidence of farmer suicides in the regions where agricultural corporations have been selling their herbicide seed and more recently their GE seeds. It first came to light in the aftermath of the green revolution as farmers found themselves more in debt and unable to meet payments many resorted to suicide as a way out of the cycle of debt and poverty. This continues today in many regions in India that she has termed the "suicide belt". It correlates to areas where GE seeds are bought and it is not happening in regions where organic farming is practiced. Dr. Shiva, in conjunction with the Indian government, has carried out studies that record the number of suicides at 100,000 to date. She equates this to genocide - a direct result of an economic policy pursued in this case by agricultural corporations.
Superiority of traditional varieties
To date GE has delivered us very little and promised a lot. Traits like drought resistance and flood resistance have evolved in plants through a complex evolutionary process. Through a combined process of farmers' ingenuity and plant intelligence these varieties already exist in nature so the "new varieties" promised by the GE corporations show science lagging behind nature. After the devastating tsunami farmers began to sow flood resistant, drought and salt resistant varieties of crops in regions most affected by the disaster. All seeds used were not GE varieties but those that had evolved and existed for hundreds of years in India. Dr. Shiva points out that GE has also delivered more reliance on herbicides. To date, soya, canola (rape seed oil), corn and cotton have been the main crops produced by the 5 major GE corporations. Soya, canola and corn have been produced mainly for animal feeds in intensive animal farming systems for the western meat market. Soya is now the biggest food commodity in the world whereas 40 years ago it was not a staple food anywhere in the world.
Third World countries, particularly in Africa, have been very outspoken about rejecting GE food as food aid donations. India also sent back two shipments of GE food aid. Dr. Shiva said that the World Food Programme should be made GE free on the grounds that vulnerable people should be given high quality food not sub-standard foodstuffs.
Stealing lifeforms
Dr. Shiva coined the term ‘bio-piracy' in order to highlight how corporations such as Monsanto have take control of the food industry through GE and patenting. The GE process opened the door for corporations to declare their "inventions" as novel and thereby take out patents on crops. This has led to a situation where it is illegal for farmers to save seeds and they are forced to pay royalties to the corporations. This is particularly devastating in many regions of India where subsistence farmers have always saved seed in order to reduce the cost of external inputs.
Article 27.3(b) of the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIP's) outlined by the WTO allows for patenting of life and essentially food crops. This led to a series of patents being taken out by corporations on many staple food crops used throughout India and other countries. Dr. Shiva describes this as the theft of traditional and indigenious knowledge or ‘bio-piracy'. Her organisation, with the backing of a patent lawyer has been instrumental in getting several patents revoked. A patent had been taken out on neem, a tree traditionally used for ecological pest control which meant that farmers who used neem would have to pay royalties to the patent holder. With the help of the European Greens and IFOAM they were successful in getting the patent revoked on the grounds that there was nothing new about the plant as it had been used for thousands of years by Indian farmers and therefore could not have been "invented" by a corporation.
WTO power
RiceTec, a corporation based in Texas, took out a patent on Basmati rice claiming to have invented it and this too was revoked. A traditional Indian variety of wheat used for making chappatis eaten in Northern India has been patented by a corporation which has claimed to have invented it. The low levels of gluten in the wheat make it important as gluten intolerance is rising in western countries.
Dr.Shiva has been successful in getting this patent revoked but more patents continue to be granted to corporations using GE as a means of claiming invention. This power has been granted by the WTO, a body which is not transparent and is not an elected representative body and whose control over food production should be seriously questioned. Important issues such as these should be debated at local level and negotiated not imposed. Dr. Shiva feels that GE will decide the future of agricultural freedom globally.
Keeping seeds alive
In 1987 Vandana Shiva started an organisation called Navdanya which means 9 seeds in Hindi. The principal aim of the organisation is to save seed, not in seed banks, but by enrolling the help of farmers to grow and keep the seeds living by planting them in the fields of India. There are over 200,000 members with 6 centres throughout India co-ordinating the organisation in the fight to keep indigenious varieties alive. Organic farming is thriving as farmers see no benefits to be gained from the GE method of farming.
In recent years her organisation has turned its attention to the area of privatisation of water rights in India. One of the 5 major water corporations in the world has been trying to buy the water rights to the sacred river Ganges. The fight continues, this time with a new set of corporations.
It is not difficult to see why Dr. Shiva feels that losing control over our agricultural resources to corporations has become "the real freedom issue of our time".
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