Vandana Shiva came to Kathmandu at the time when Monsanto is trying to lay its ground in Nepal. The timing could not have been more ideal to put sense on what the arrival of MONSANTO will mean for our future of food and agriculture. What struck me most was that we have heard of privatisation of land, water and other systems but now it has come to Privatisation of LIFE FORMS (seeds; medicinal plants).This in itself is Enclsoure of Life- taking freedom from life itself. Some of her thought provoking messages were…….

SEED means LIFE and the potential it has to evolve. What we see happening now is Erasure and Closure of Future as we PATENT SEEDS the very life as this is the way to make Profits by Royalty. With Patent comes MONOPOLY.

Food at Present times = Commodity (its quality and nourishment value do not matter ). You get MASS and not food.  Food is now stripped of its essence of nourishment; taste; health; culture and traditions.

We tell the Farmers that local seeds are PRIMITIVE and need to be replaced by HIGH-YIELD varieties. Anything local is made to feel INFERIOR. This is the way in for the agro-company giants to RULE LIFE. 

Vandana Shiva says that freedom of knowledge is important to free ourselves from Monopoly.  In all these years of GMO intervention in numerous countries 90% of the cases have not produced the results as suggested by the GMOs. Instead more diseases have come up and now fields and farms are infested with SUPER WEEDS and SUPER PESTS.

 She ends her speech with a few words from a great Rabindra Nath Tagore’s poem, “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high and where knowledge is free…..”

One thing I take from this event is to discover the FORGOTTEN FOODS as they are the food of the future and keep SAVING SEEDS. Explore what’s forgotten and bring it ALIVE!

GMOs, Seed Wars and Knowledge War

The only reason crops have been genetically engineered is to take patents on seeds, and collect royalties. If, during colonialism, the concept of Terra Nullius, empty land, allowed the takeover of land and territories by the colonizer, a new concept of Bio Nullius, empty life, is being used to claim “intellectual property rights” on seeds, biodiversity and life forms. But life is not empty. Seeds are not an invention. They embody millions of years of biological evolution, and thousands of years of cultural evolution and farmers breeding.—-By Dr Vandana Shiva

Related articles

• Updates from the World of Agriculture – Freedom Starts with a Seed(iflizwerequeen.com)