Dr Vandana Shiva
SAVING – AND SOWING – THE SEEDS OF CHANGE
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 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.” ag
The ASIAN Geographic Hot Soup Challenge returns for another year to put Singapore’s kids in the quiz hot seat and challenge their general knowledge about Asia. The school challenge will run in April 2017 under the theme of Climate Change. Students will have the opportunity to study up on relevant issues through the January edition, which will address issues relating to global warming. This year’s challenge will also dovetail with the Asia Dive Expo, which runs at Suntec from 7–9 April. The contest is broken down into three categories: • Junior (age 7–12) • Students (age 12–18) • Open Category (age 18 and above)
APRIL
APPLICABLE FOR PRINT SUBSCRIPTION: Opt for complimentary e-magazine: New subscriber
1 year SGD55 1 year SGD65 2 years SGD105 2 years SGD130 1 year SGD25 1 year SGD28