Catalyst Radio: You talked about seed patenting and the dilemmas with that. Could you say a little more about what the dangers of that are. About the biological dangers of having homogenous seed production. And what that means to people, particularly people in indigenous populations around the world, which are the ones that hold this rich treasure of centuries of knowledge.
Dr. Vandana Shiva: The first problem that starts with the patenting of seed is that corporations do not sell seed according to what is adapted to local climate, or what farmers need. They sell seed according to where they have been able to do the quickest manipulation.
So that using that manipulation they can claim novelty.
Claiming novelty they can claim patents.
I've been of the view that genetic engineering was an excuse to enforce patents on seed.
It was an unnecessary step in improving breeding. We don't have a single improved crop through genetic engineering.
We got herbicide resistant crops and we have BT toxin crops. Neither of which are improvements from nature's perspective, from farmer¹s perspective. Now if you just look at the world. Where is the highest rate of expansion of crop varieties? It's in genetically engineered Soya, genetically engineered corn, genetically engineered canola, and genetically engineered cotton.
So you are getting the food base of the world, which should be something like ten thousand crops, being reduced to four genetically engineered crops. None adapted to any ecosystem.
All of them in the hands of one company, Monsanto, controlling something like ninety-three, ninety-four percent of all GM seeds sold anywhere in the world.
So you have the problem of mono-cultures, of homogeneity, but you also have the problem of total control of the seed supply.
And that total control of the seed supply has many social and economic
implications.
First implication is that farmers who used to save seed, and who used to be able to exchange seed, are now treated as thieves of intellectual property. It also means that the cost of seed start to skyrocket because farmers must pay royalties, must pay technology fees, must buy seeds annually, and a zero cost input in farming has ended up being the highest cost input in farming. In addition, corporations like Monsanto ensure that farmers alternative supplies are destroyed by other legal trips - seed laws, compulsory legislation like the Iraqi ¹81 order, like the Indian Seed Act, and through that they ensure that farmer¹s alternatives, genetic diversity, biodiversity, specially in the countries that are home to genetic diversity are wiped out.
Which is a threat not just to those communities. It is a threat to humanity. It is a threat to our food supply. It is a threat to our security.
Catalyst Radio: Quite often people who dismiss the concerns of people like yourself are sharing, they keep saying that all we have is a criticism. That what we are is always against, not what we are for. Can you say something about what this global movement is really asking for. Asking for what we want to happen.
Dr. Vandana Shiva: You know, before I started to fight against patents in seed, I started to first save seed.
Because you cannot afford to critic a system to which you cannot offer an alternative.
First of all, those who are destroying alternatives, will then treat the absence of alternatives as the reason for their existence.
Secondly, you really do not have the moral authority to demand a shift if you have not been able to show that there are other ways, and better ways to do things.
On seed saving, we firmly believe seed is a common resource.
Seed is a common heritage.
And so we actually do what we believe in.
We create community seed banks from which farmers can take the seeds they need according to their agriculture, according to their cropping systems. Seeds in a free exchange of a common property.
In agriculture, when we critic globalization of trade, and we critic the control of agriculture in the hands of a few giants, and the technologies of non-sustainability, we do the farming and the trade that allows farmers to have alternatives.
Navdanya organization that I founded has trained more that two hundred thousand farmers in India to go corporate free and chemical free. And corporate seed free.
Our farmers have increased their income three-fold. They have reduced their expenditure by ninety percent.
The only place in India where farmers are not getting into debt is areas where they are practicing sustainable organic farming.
And are engaging in fair trade where they set the terms of the market, rather than the genocidal terms created by the ConAgra's and the Cargill's. And in case of water, we conserve water.
We conserve every drop.
We make our contribution to building up and rebuilding our common legacy and then we have the moral right and the authority to say you will not mess around with our water.
Because it is water that we share.
It is water that we conserve collectively.
And it is water to which access for all must be guaranteed.