Vandana Shiva challenges the world’s lack of biodiversity

Like a growing number of people, Vandana Shiva wants to know where her food comes from. Gaining that knowledge starts small, with the seeds. The 61-year-old physicist, ecologist and author from Delhi, India, has been saving and collecting seeds for nearly three decades, and she is passionate about encouraging others to do the same. This, she has said, is a political act – a kind of revolution.

In a recent phone conversation with The Pitch, Shiva explained why she became an activist for sustainable, organic agriculture in 1987, after discovering the dirty little secret behind industrial farming and genetic engineering. Turns out, the motive behind tinkering with nature’s design wasn’t as simple as producing more commodities, as its proponents have claimed.

“I was fortunate enough to be at a meeting where these corporations said very honestly, ‘We need to do genetic engineering in order to have patents and to own the seeds so we can collect royalties,'” Shiva told The Pitch. “Having something as vital as the seed in the hands of five companies whose only concern is collecting royalties is very, very precarious for humanity.”

Shiva had already dedicated her life to protecting soil, farmers and food. In 1984, she founded Navdanya, a nonprofit organization named for the nine crops that provide food security in India. By saving thousands of varieties of seeds, Navdanya has done the opposite of corporations like Monsanto, which controls 95 percent of the cottonseed in India, a country with more than 1,500 varieties of cotton.

“Without biodiversity, we don’t have sustainability,” she said. “If there’s a singular contribution that Navdanya has made, it’s first to bring seed to the center of agriculture, and second to show scientifically that biodiversity actually produces more food. … This panic we have that we have to use genetic engineering to feed the world is such a false claim.”

One-dimensional, profit-based thinking, or what Shiva calls “the monoculture of the mind,” is undermining biodiversity, which ultimately affects our health. Thanks to herbicide-resistant and Bt-toxin traits, genetically engineered crops require ever-stronger poisons, including notorious defoliant Agent Orange, to eliminate pests.

Locally, however, community gardens and organic, local foods are flourishing thanks to organizations such as Cultivate Kansas City, Kansas City Community Gardens, and the Kansas City Food Circle. Cultivate KC offers workshops, classes and volunteer opportunities – as well as internships on the Juniper Gardens Training Farm located near downtown Kansas City, Kansas – to grow the movement and teach residents and transplanted refugees how to become independent organic farmers.

Shiva believes that the world’s population could be fed with food grown on small farms by combining those farms with gardens and encouraging farming through government policies and subsidies. This may sound like a lofty goal, but Shiva has witnessed a burgeoning desire to do the work.

“Whenever I come to the United States, I notice how hungry young people are to do gardening and organic farming,” she said. “Not only do you reclaim seed freedom and seed sovereignty, your garden becomes a seed sanctuary and a provider of freedom, self-reliance and quality food. It also builds community. This is something all of us can do.”

Change needs to begin at a very local, personal level, Shiva said. For many of us, it begins by saving seeds. For those with limited time and space, a couple of potted herbs in a kitchen window or a few tomatoes on a balcony are good starts.

“Everyone can be a seed saver,” she said. “You just need to have one little pot with a seed and say, ‘This is a seed I absolutely love – a seed I will defend with all of my love and all of my life.'”

Shiva speaks at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 17, at Unity Temple on the Plaza (707 West 47th Street), and at 6:30 p.m. Friday, April 18, at Johnson County Community College (12345 College Boulevard, Overland Park). For more information and ticket prices, see cultivatekc.org.