more costly than natural seeds. Today, 95 percent of all cotton seeds sold in India—the land of cotton, the land where
we have 1,500 varieties of cotton, the land where Gandhi
spun cotton cloth to get our freedom—is today totally controlled by Monsanto. Gandhi brought out the spinning
wheel and said we will break free of the British Empire by
spinning cloth, not shooting guns. When I started Navdanya, I took the inspiration from the spinning wheel, and
said the seed is today’s spinning wheel. We’ve got to break
free of corporate control through seeds. When farmers buy
these seeds, they don’t have the capital. The seeds are
given on credit with the land as mortgage. Within three
years the crop has failed, the debt has built up. In many
cases this unpayable debt has pushed farmers, primarily in
cotton areas, to suicide. So one can easily say that GMO
seeds and royalty extraction is hugely implicated in the
quarter-million farm suicides that have taken place in India
in a little over a decade. A quarter-million farmers. Now of
course Monsanto denies it. It puts out full page ads with a
TV, a car, a motorcycle and a computer growing out of the
cotton, saying it will give 1,500 kg per acre. The average, according to government statistics, is about 400 kg.
There was a very important article in Forbes magazine
on November 6, 2011, called “Why Uncle Sam Loves
Franken-Foods” that discusses how the American government is pushing GMOs worldwide. The U.S. actually has an
act called the Global Food Security Act, passed in 2009, in
which aid is given to countries that use GMOs. In Haiti,
after the earthquake, they said we’ll give you seeds—
Monsanto seeds. When USAID pressured Nepal, we started a
huge campaign to get Monsanto out. We just got Monsanto
out of the Indian state Rajasthan. So on one hand, you’ve
got Monsanto and the U.S. government pushing GMOs
worldwide, and on the other hand, you’ve got people
worldwide saying we don’t want this. And the more people
find out what genetic engineering is and how it’s not doing
the job it’s supposed to do, they start asking, “Why should
we hand over the ownership of our seed for bad technology?” It makes absolutely no democratic sense.
OP: So how does organic agriculture help solve the problem of
feeding an ever-growing population?
Shiva: On the basis of my research, I would say that organic
is the only way that the world will be fed. First, chemical industrial agriculture kills the farmers. And if it hasn’t killed
them, it’s put them into debt and indebted farmers sell
what they grow, they don’t eat what they grow. That is why
of the 1 billion hungry, 500 million worldwide are growers
of food, who are growing food chemically at high debt, and
selling off everything they grow. Secondly, organic farming
doesn’t deplete the natural capital that is the basis of all
Organic Processing Magazine offers a state-of-the-art green
option for subscribers.
When you choose our digital subscription, instead of
receiving a printed magazine we will notify you by email
that your digital edition is ready for viewing.
• Speed • Immediacy • Global Accessibility
• Intuitive User Interface
Preview the enhanced digital interface at
www.organicprocessing-digital.com
> Read the entire issue page-by-page
> Go to any story from Table of Contents
> Share with colleagues
> Go directly to advertiser websites by clicking on their links
> Searchable archives
> Download the magazine to your computer
