Dr. Vandana Shiva
In the words of Dr. Vandana Shiva, “Food is a weapon. When you control real weapons and arms, you control armies. When you control food, you control society. When you control seed, you control life on Earth.”
Dr. Vandana Shiva is a philosopher, physicist, and activist that uses her research to advocate for the environment and women. As the daughter of a Himalayan forester, she learned the Earth’s gifts to humanity from her father’s perspective. Her father curated her understanding of nature. Additionally, her love for science bolstered this innate relationship she had with the Earth. Her work centered around understanding how science impacts people and the environment. She combined her love for science with her love for nature to create a holistic discipline.
This interpretation of science and her love for nature led her to activism. During her graduate studies, she joined the Chipko movement, a collective of Indian women that foraged on lands that were set for deforestation. Women would hug the trees as a form of resistance and create a linkage protecting nature through nonviolent force. This idea of creating a symbol of nonviolent resistance is a powerful theme in Dr. Shiva’s life, especially as she approaches her fight against patents on genetically modified organisms. Similarly, the government’s reaction to the Chipko movement reiterates the crux of Dr. Shiva’s work and becomes the common reaction to how many approach the movements she has supported: the environmental cost far outweighs the financial gain from corporations.
Dr. Vandana Shiva became a scientific consultant for many projects throughout the years particularly pertaining to issues with government, corporations, and people as they relate to the environment. Her work reconstructed how environmental issues were approached in India. She confronted civilians to see what the problem was and how their understanding of the land shaped the issue at hand. She particularly approached women with the understanding that the women of these areas are connected to the land and its resources more than a transactional relationship. From her work, she was able to gather valuable resources on how the issues progressed and how these issues continued to be shaped by the transactional relationship corporations have to the land. This work lead her to the creation of The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy (now known as The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE)) in 1982. This foundation was a data collection center located on her parents’ land. She collected any and all research as it pertained to how issues progressed through science and ecology.
The RFSTE later created seed banks throughout India as means of redistributing power and reliance. This was an act of defiance against Agricultural companies that sought to create a reliance on biotechnology. Dr. Shiva is known as an outspoken advocate against the Green Revolution, the attempt to distribute pesticides and herbicides throughout Asia eventually evolving to genetically modified seed distribution. As an accompanying effort to stop this from spreading, Dr. Shiva led the seed revolution. In her words,
“As I sat through a conference on biotechnology in Geneva in 1987 listening to the corporate agenda, it became clear to me that it was an agenda of total control. The farmers would depend on these companies for their seed supply. They would have to pay royalties to corporations like Monsanto for every seed they plant, in every season. Human beings would have no choice but to eat the food they brought us, with no way to choose an alternative. We have to do something that prevents this totalitarian future from becoming inevitable. I thought of Gandhi pulling out the spinning wheel at a time that spinning wheels weren’t being used anymore because the British textile industry had absolutely wiped out Indian spinning and weaving. And I thought, what is today’s spinning wheel? Today’s industry is biotechnology: it’s controlling all life on Earth. Seed, therefore, quite clearly, has to be today’s spinning wheel. So I started to save seed—in a way, spinning our freedom for today.”
Dr. Vandana Shiva
In 1991, Dr. Shiva created Navdanya, a school that educates people from every background on issues of seeds, ecology and agriculture. Navdanya has educated many people and given women from underrepresented backgrounds a chance to learn about the earth and the ways we all play a role in agriculture.
Since 1991, Dr. Vandana Shiva has been the face and leader of the Revolution against Biotechnology. Her work is essential in understanding the efforts of seed activism. Her work uses education, activism, and community work to make a global impact. Her global presence moves the environmental movement further as she continues to work alongside women and the working class to address issues of how human involvement impacts our Earth. She is a living symbol to the fight we must continue against biotechnology. For further resources and understandings of her research, we have a curated list of resources to help further understand her life and legacy.
Relevant Books Written by Dr. Vandana Shiva
Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development by Dr. Vandana Shiva (1988)
Ecofeminism by Maria Miles and Dr. Vandana Shiva (1993)
Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge by Dr. Vandana Shiva (1999)
Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability and Peace by Dr. Vandana Shiva (2016)
Who Really Feeds the World?: The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology by Vandana Shiva (2016)
Reclaiming the Commons: Biodiversity, Traditional Knowledge, and the Rights of Mother Earth by Dr. Vandana Shiva (2020)
Terra Viva: My Life in a Biodiversity of Movements by Dr. Vandana Shiva (2022)
Biblography
Becket, camilla, and James Becket. The Seeds of Vandana Shiva. 2021.
“Navdanya.” Navdanya, https://www.navdanya.org/index.php. Accessed 4 Feb. 2024.
“Vandana Shiva.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vandana-Shiva.
Accessed 4 Feb. 2024.
“Vandana Shiva | Center for Humans and Nature.” Center for Humans and Nature, https://humansandnature.org/vandana-
shiva/. Accessed 4 Feb. 2024.
“Vandana Shiva on Gandhi for Today’s World - YES! Magazine Solutions Journalism.” YES! Magazine,
https://www.facebook.com/yesmagazine/, https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/new-economy/2009/07/08/vandana-shiva-on-gandhi-for-today2019s-world. Accessed 4 Feb. 2024.
