Vandana Shiva on biodiversity

On the evening of 30 June 2010, around 1,000 people gathered at the premises of the firm Alb-Gold to listen to the environmental activist Dr. Vandana Shiva. For more than 20 years, this charismatic Indian has been fighting tirelessly with her organization Navdanya for the rights of the rural population – women in particular – and for organic agriculture free of genetically modified organisms. In 2007, she was awarded the alternative Nobel prize for her efforts and since then, as an effective speaker, more than ever before she has been in demand all over the world. Thus, after securing the attendance of Percy Schmeiser, the head of Alb-Gold, Klaus Freidler, worked for two years to bring Vandana Shiva here this year  to attend his ‘Trochtelfingen Round Table Discussions’, and he finally succeeded.

On her way home from Canada via Munich, where she was going to attend the opening ceremony of the Rachel Carson Center für Umwelt und Gesellschaft, she found time for the event organized by the committed Swabian noodle manufacturer. After all, Freidler advocates natural nutrition without the use of GMO. In his welcome, he said that Alb-Gold organized these events, because as manufacturers they had responsibility for the present and future generations. Unfortunately he died two weeks after this event at a bicycle tour he did alone. (Picture: Vandana Shiva named Klaus Freidler’s company herb garden “Garden of Biodiversity” with islands of freedom)
 

2010 is the year of biodiversity, and “Biodiversity instead of Naivety” was the theme of the evening, with music and food laid on. The presenter was Bernward Geier (on the left in the picture above) who, after being head of IFOAM, founded the agency Colabora and has been a friend of Vandana Shiva for many years (picture on right).
 

The 57-year-old Shiva came onto the stage with a broad smile. This in no way detracted from the seriousness of her message when she spoke about the imminent danger by GMO and biopiracy to people and nature in India. She illustrated her point with examples of what she herself had experienced in the work of the sustainability movement Navdanya that she founded after the Bhopal catastrophe.
 

The subcontinent extends across different climate zones and has, therefore, a vast wealth of plants. According to the APEDA (Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority) that is responsible for exports, there were a million hectares of certified organic agricultural land in 2008. The area of land used for wild collecting is almost double that figure.
Vandana Shiva was of the opinion that it was probably ten times as much, since traditional peasant agriculture still predominated and the methods used were largely in keeping with organic principles. The government, that supports organic agriculture, has an official target of ten million hectares by 2012. Rising demand for Indian organic products at home and abroad suggests this target will be reached. Among the most important products are Basmati rice, pulses, honey, tea, spices, coffee, oil seeds and fruit, followed by functional foods, cosmetics and textiles. Organic cotton is the most important export product. (Picture: The famous speaker and, her assessment of biodiversity notwithstanding, the relaxed open-air atmosphere attracted hundreds of people from the locality)
 

“Nature gives us so much. How could we sacrifice this beauty?” is how Vandana Shiva began her speech that lasted for almost an hour. The aboriginal tribes of India had retained their respect for nature. Instead of saying: “I’m going to do farming”, they say: “I am going to beautify the earth.” However, organic and traditional agriculture was under threat from big multinational companies. Gene technology and biopiracy arrived in the country long ago. She explained that not only were more and more genetically modified plants being grown in monoculture but the big concerns were increasingly applying for patents on plants. On the one hand, they wanted to secure licence fees and, on the other, they wanted to prevent farmers exchanging seed and propagating it themselves. Their intention was to make them dependent on expensive GMO seed and the pesticides and fertilizers necessary to grow them, she concluded.
 

Shiva, who has a Ph.D in Physics, gave concrete examples: originally there had been 1,500 varieties of cotton. After only eight years, 90 % had become the victim of monopolization. The seed for the predominant GMO Bt cotton was considerably more expensive than for natural cotton, and 70 % of the cost went direct to Monsanto as patent fees. (Picture: Klaus Freidler is convinced that the danger caused by bio-patents has to be made known far and wide. 
 

“Patents are theft of ancient knowledge”, said Vandana Shiva. In her opinion, there is no patent right regarding living things, and for this reason her objective with Navdanya is to preserve plants that have developed naturally over centuries for the indigenous population and thus to protect biological and cultural diversity. She explained that 23 years ago she went to village huts herself to collect local seed. This action developed into a network of more than 50 community seed banks in 24 federal states in India.
 

About 3,000 varieties of rice, 75 of wheat, hundreds of types of millet, pulses, fruit trees and much more besides are stored in these decentralized facilities and preserved by being continuously sown. With the help of the seed banks, Navdanya also wants to find and select climate-resistant varieties that can be used in India to combat extremes like drought, salination or floods. She pointed out that investigations had shown that the monocultures of the industrialized agriculture industry were much more susceptible to these climate swings than autochthonous varieties. (Picture: In the lively discussion that followed there was general agreement that everybody should and could start campaigning)
 

She said that food was just commodities for the global food industry. Nutritional value was of no significance, only product quantity. In contrast, a feature of many old varieties was precisely their high nutritional value, and she gave the example of a variety of wheat containing 9 % protein – more than double the level in modern high-performance wheats. A negative example was Golden Rice that was supposed to develop more vitamin A by having a gene inserted. It would be simpler and less dangerous to concentrate on plants like carrots or the indigenous curry plant, or a red rice variety that grows in the mountains and contains far more vitamin A then the GMO variant.
 

Among other things, the example of the indigenous Neem tree is ample evidence of the fact that the work of this environmental activist, who is committed to the philosophy of Ghandi, produces tangible results. This tree is used a great deal in Ayurvedic medicine and also as the source of a powerful natural pesticide. The multinational company Grace applied for a patent on this knowledge in order to force Indians to pay a licence fee. It was only after fighting for eleven years and with the help of IFOAM that Navdanya was able to re-establish free access for the population.
 

She also reported on their most recent success, namely stopping the growing of genetically modified aubergines. India is the genetic origin of the aubergine and many varieties thrive there. Together with its subsidiary Mahyco, Monsanto developed a seedless aubergine with the Bt toxin that is supposed to be immune to the aubergine fruit borer and it was to be put on the market in 2009. Commercial cropping of this aubergine, would not only have been a danger to biodiversity  – worldwide it was also the first GMO plant containing the Bt poison that was intended for human consumption!

At first, the Ministry of Agriculture approved the application but more and more people began to oppose its introduction. Navdanya not only collected thousands of signatures but also discovered various flaws in the approval process. The ministry had not pursued, for example, information about the allergic effect and the toxicity of the Bt gene that should have been taken seriously. Safety tests had not been carried out with the transgene Bt poison but with the natural microbial protein. It was not definitively established how high the risk was of crossing with untreated aubergines or indeed with other plants. And finally there was no guarantee of neutrality, because GMO developers were involved in the tests. The protests led to a moratorium and then, at the last minute, to a ban. (Picture: The cry for help “Mother Earth” as danced by the Indian duo Askruti gave expression to this serious issue)
 

Vandana Shiva’s aim is to show farmers that there are alternatives, among other things organic cropping, that keeps them in charge and ensures a reasonable income. She also wanted to make the people listening at Alb-Gold aware of the fact that they too could get involved, and she said: “When we buy GMO-free food and textiles, it is a political act to maintain freedom. In this way, we preserve seed and become co-producers.”
 

Tip: Navdanya