Jain Spirit 2001 06 No 08

Author(s): Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains

Page 52

Stolen Harvest
commercial seed market, valued at $23 billion. These corpora- In 1987, the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation organised tions also control the global agrochemical and pesticide market. a meeting on biotechnology called "Laws of Life". This Just five corporations control the global trade in grain. At the watershed event made it clear that the giant chemical end of 1998 Cargill, the largest of these five companies bought companies were repositioning themselves as "life sciences" Continental, the second largest making it the single biggest companies and their main goal was to control agriculture factor in the grain trade. Monoliths Cargill and Monsanto were through patents, genetic engineering and mergers. At that both actively involved in shaping international trade meeting I decided I would dedicate the next decade of my agreements, which led to the establishment of WTO.
life to finding ways to prevent monopolies on life and living Global corporations are not just stealing the harvest of resources, both through resistance and through building farmers. They are stealing nature's harvest through genetic creative alternatives. engineering and patents on life forms. Crops such as The first step I took was to start Navdanya, a movement Monsanto's Roundup Ready soybeans,
for saving seed, protecting biodesigned to be resistant to herbicides lead
diversity and keeping seed and to the destruction of biodiversity and the
"Women in India create
agriculture free of monopoly control. increased use of agrochemicals. They
The Navdanya movement has started can also create highly invasive “super the most beautiful art with
sixteen community seed banks in six weeds” by transferring the genes for her
states in India. Today Navdanya has bicide resistance to weeds.
thousands of members who conserve
rice flour on their To secure patents on life forms and
biodiversity, practise chemical-free living resources, corporations must claim doorstens, which provide
agriculture and have taken a pledge to seeds and plants to be "inventions" and
continue to save and share the seeds hence their property. Corporations like
food for the ants.” and biodiversity they have received as Cargill and Monsanto see nature's web of
gifts from nature and their ancestors. life and cycles of renewal as "theft" of their
In India, the poorest peasants property. During the debate about the entry of Cargill into India in have been organic farmers because they could never afford 1992, the Cargill chief executive stated: “We bring Indian farmers chemicals. Today they are joined by a growing intersmart technologies which prevent bees from usurping the pollen." national organic movement that consciously avoids During the United Nations bio safety negotiations, Monsanto chemicals and genetic engineering. Ecological and organic circulated literature that claimed, “Weeds steal the sunshine". A agriculture is referred to in India as non-violent agriculture world-view that defines pollination as theft by bees" and claims or ahimsic krishi, because it is based on compassion for all that diverse plants "steal" sunshine is one aimed at stealing species and hence the protection of biodiversity in agriculture. nature's harvest. This is a world-view based on scarcity.
Our movements advocate the recovery of biodiversity A world-view of abundance is the world-view of women in and intellectual commons. By refusing to recognise life's India who create the most beautiful art with rice flour on their diversity as a corporate invention and hence as corporate doorsteps, which provide food for the ants. Abundance is the property, we are acknowledging the intrinsic value of all world-view of peasant women who weave beautiful designs of species and their self-organising capacity. By refusing to paddy to hang up for birds when the birds do not find grain in allow privatisation of living resources, we are defending the the fields. This view of abundance recognises that in giving right to survival of the two-thirds majority that depend food to other beings and species we maintain conditions for our on nature's capital. These are exciting times. It is not own food security.
inevitable that corporations will control our lives and rule In the ecological world-view, when we consume more than the world. We have a real possibility to shape our own we need or exploit nature on principles of greed, we are engag- future. We have an ecological and social duty to ensure that ing in theft. In the anti-life view of agribusiness corporations the food that nourishes us is not a stolen harvest. In this nature, renewing and maintaining herself, is a thief. Such a duty, we each have the opportunity to work for the freedom world-view replaces abundance with scarcity and fertility with and liberation of all species and all people - no matter who sterility.
we are, no matter where we are. What we are seeing is the emergence of food totalitarianism, in which a handful of corporations control the entire food
Adapted from Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global chain and destroy alternatives. The notion of rights has been
Food Supply by Vandana Shiva; South End Press. 7. turned on its head under globalisation and free trade. The right
Brooklin I, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Vandana Shiva is to food, the right to safety, the right to culture are all being
establishing a new international college for sustainable treated as trade barriers that need to be dismantled.
living in India. E-mail:vshiva@glasdlol.vsnl.net.in.
June - August 2001. Jain Spirit
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