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ENVIRONMENT
JAYU SHAH
STOLEN HARVEST
Seeds grown by nature can never be owned or patented by commercial
companies. This is greed and
exploitation of the worst kind, writes campaigner Vandana Shiva
The seed for the farmer is not merely the source of future plants
and food; it is also the storage place of culture and history
FOCUS ON INDIA BOTH BECAUSE I AM AN INDIAN AND BECAUSE Indian agriculture is being especially targeted by global Lcorporations. However, this phenomenon of stolen harvest is not unique to India. It is being experienced in every society as small farms and small farmers are pushed into extinction. Monocultures replace biodiverse crops and farming is transformed from the production of nourishing and diverse foods into the creation of markets for genetically engineered seeds, herbicides and pesticides.
For centuries, Third World farmers have evolved crops and given us the diversity of plants that provide nutrition. Indian farmers evolved 200,000 varieties of rice. They bred rice varieties such as Basmati. They bred red rice and brown rice and black rice. They bred rice that grew eighteen feet tall in floodwaters and saline-resistant rice that could thrive in coastal water.
The seed for the farmer is not merely the source of future plants and food. It is the storage place of culture and history. Free exchange of seeds among farmers has been the basis of maintaining biodiversity as well as food security, it involves exchanges of ideas and knowledge, of culture and heritage. It is an accumulation of tradition and of knowledge of how to work the seed. Farmers learn about the plants they want to grow, in other farmers' fields.
Rice has religious significance in India and is an essential component of most festivals. In southern India, rice grain is considered auspicious and is given as a blessing. New seeds are first worshipped and only then are they planted. Festivals held before sowing seeds, as well as harvest festivals celebrated in the fields, symbolise people's intimacy with nature.
For the farmer, the field is the mother. Worshipping the field is a sign of gratitude toward the Earth which, as a mother, feeds the millions of life forms that are her children. However, the new intellectual property-rights regimes, which are being universalised through the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement of the World Trade Organization (WTO), allow corporations to usurp the knowledge of the seed and monopolise it by claiming it as their private property. Over time, this will result in corporate monopolies over the seed itself. Centuries of collective innovations by farmers and peasants are being hijacked by corporations claiming intellectual property rights over plants.
Today, ten corporations control 32 per cent of the
50 Jain Spirit . June - August 2001 in Education International 2010_03
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