Articles by Dr. Shiva

GOOD FOOD FOR ALL:
BOTH NECESSARY AND POSSIBLE

by Dr. Vandana Shiva

Industrialization of food and agriculture has put the human species on a slippery slope of self destruction and self annihilation.

The false idea that human care can be substituted by the careless technology of poisonous chemicals and giant machinery has led to three of the biggest threats humanity faces.

1. Climate chaos and the ecological crisis

2. Farmers' suicides, the agrarian crisis and the destruction of the countryside

3. Hunger and the dual malnutrition crisis - the malnutrition linked to denial of food to the poor which affects 1 billion and the malnutrition linked to denial of good food which affects 2 billion through food related diseases.

Industrial agriculture and food systems waste and pollute water and air, and poison the land and the food we eat.

Chemical agriculture is a major reason for waste of water. Dams have been built for intensive irrigation for chemical agriculture. Ecological agriculture reduces water use at many levels.

1. Shifting from a dependence on monocultures of water demanding crops to diversity of water prudent crops;

2. Shifting from chemicals to organic manures which increase the soil's water conservation capacity.

Chemical industrial agriculture is also a major contributor to greenhouse gases which are destabilizing the climate. Nitrogen fertilizers emit nitrogen oxide, a lethal green house gas. Nitrogen fertilizers also use a great deal of fossil fuels which lead to carbon dioxide emissions. The fossil fuel use in production, packaging, transportation and application is 2.03 litres diesel equivalent/kg of fertilizer. Biodiverse organic agriculture does not contribute to greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels or the synthetic fertilizers. In fact, by fixing carbon in plants and returning organic matter to soil, it contributes to carbon sequestration and hence mitigation of climate change.

Biodiverse organic and local food systems contribute both to mitigation of and adoption to climate change. Mitigation of climate change takes place because of

· Lower emissions of greenhouse gases
· Higher absorption of CO2 by plants and by the soil

Organic farming is based on recycling of organic matter, unlike chemical agriculture, which is based on chemical fertilizers emitting nitrous oxides. Further, industrial agriculture leads to dispossession of small farmers and conversion of small farms to large holdings, which need mechanization, which also contributes to Co2 emissions. Small, biodiverse, organic farms especially in Third World countries are totally fossil fuel free. Energy for farming operations comes form animal energy. Soil fertility is built by feeding soil organisms by recycling organic matter. This reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Biodiverse systems are also more resilient to draughts and floods because they have higher water holding capacity and hence contribute to adaption to climate change. Navdanya's study on climate change and organic farming has indicated that organic farming increases carbon absorption by upto 55% and water holding capacity by 10% thus contributing to both mitigation and adaption to climate change.

The environmental advantages of small-scale biodiverse organic farms are not a trade off with food security. Biodiverse organic farms produce more food and higher incomes than industrial monocultures. Mitigating climate change, conserving biodiversity and increasing food security can thus go hand in hand.

The conventional measures of productivity uses only labour as an input, and ignore energy and resources inputs. This biased productivity pushes farmers off the land and replaces them with chemicals and machines, which in turn contribute to greenhouse gases and climate change.

Further, output is focused on yield of single globally traded commodities. The focus on "yield" of individual commodities creates which I have called a "monoculture of the mind". The promotion of so-called "high yielding varieties" leads to the displacement of biodiversity. It also destroys the ecological functions of biodiversity. The loss of diverse outputs is never internalized in the one dimensional productivity calculus.

When biodiversity is taken into account, biodiverse systems have higher output than monocultures. And organic farming is more beneficial for the farmers and the earth than chemical farming.

When agro-forestry is included in farming systems, carbon absorption and carbon return increases dramatically. Neem and date palm increases the carbon density in the soil by 185 and 174 per cent respectively.

These results have also been observed in other countries. The FAO reports increase of carbon absorption from 2 to 9 tonnes annually under systems of agro-forestry.

Studies carried out by the USDA National Agro-Forestry Centre suggests that soil carbon can be increased by 6.6 tonnes C/ha/yr over a 15 year rotation and wood by 12.11 tonnes C/ha/yr (Edward Goldsmith, p10)

The soil and vegetation are our biggest carbon suiles. However, industrial agriculture destroys both. By disrupting the cycles of returning organic matter to the soil, chemical agriculture depletes the soil carbon. Mechanization forces the cutting down of farm trees and hedge rows. The sacred Khajri for which 300 people gave their lives in Rajasthan and few centuries ago is being chopped down to make way for the tractor. Chemical/mechanical farming work against carbon sequestration, even while they add more carbon to the atmosphere.

The alternatives to chemical fertilizers are many, Green manures such as Sesbania aculeate (Dhencha), Gliricidia, and Sun hemp, legume crops such as pulses which fix nitrogen through the legume - rhizobium symbiosis, earthworms, cow dung, and their composts.

Organic manure is food for the community of living beings which depend on the soil. Soils treated with farmyard manure have from two to two and a half times as many earthworms as untreated soils. Farm yard manures encourages the build up of earthworms through increasing their food supply, whether they feed directly on it or on the micro organisms it supports. Earthworms contribute to soil fertility by maintaining soil structure, aeration and drainage and by breaking down organic matter and incorporating it into the soil. The work of earthworms in soil formation was Darwin's major concern in later years. When finishing his book on earthworms he wrote, "it may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of creatures. The little earthworm working invisibly in the soil is actually the tractor and fertilizer factory and dam combined. Worm worked soils are more water stable than unworked soils, and worm inhabited soils have considerably more organic carbon and nitrogen than parent soils. By their continuous movement through soils, earthworms make for the formation of channels which help in soil aeration. It is estimated that they increase soil-air volume by up to 30%. Soils with earthworms drain four to ten times faster than soil without earthworms and their water holding capacity is higher by 20%. Earthworms casts, which can be 4-36 tons dry weight/acre/year contain more nutritive material containing carbon, nitrogen, calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, phosphorous than the parent soil. Their work on the soil promotes microbial activity which is essential to the fertility of most soils.

The castings of earthworms have 5 times more nitrogen, 7 times more phosphorous, 3 times more exchangeable magnesium, 11 times more potash and 1.5 times more calcium than soil.

At the Navdanya farm in Doon Valley, we have been feeding the soil organisms. They in turn feed us. We have been building soil and rejuvenating its life. The clay component on our farm is 41% higher than neighbouring chemical farms, which indicates a higher water holding capacity. There is a 124% increase in the organic matter content of the soil on our farm. Nitrogen concentration was 85% higher, phosphorus content was 10% more and available potassium was 25% more than soil samples from chemical farms. Our farm is also much richer in soil samples from chemical farms. Our farm is also much richer in soil organisms such as mycorrhiza which are fungi that bring nutrients to plants. Mycorrhizal association provides food material from the soil to draught and our food is delicious, as any visitors to our farm can vouch. Our farm is fossil fuel free. Bullocks plough the land and fertilize it.

While contributing to climate destabilization and chaos, industrial agriculture is also more vulnerable to unpredictable changes in climate. Monocultures suffer more damage during extensive draughts, floods, frost, cyclones than biodiverse systems do.

Biodiversity is in fact our cushion and insurance in the face of unpredictable climate changes. A false assumption is growing that we need genetic engineering to deal with climate change.

This assumption is false because of a number of reasons. Firstly, nature and farmers have evolved, and continue to evolve varieties which are nutrient to draught, floods and Stalinization due to cyclones, the three main impacts of climate change.

In Navdanya community seed banks, we have crops like millets which can withstand severe draught we have rice that grow 18 feet tall and survive the floods of the Ganges basin. We have rice which can tolerate salt which we distributed after the Orissa cyclone and the tsunami. The Salt tolerant varieties we have saved, multiplied and distributed include 'Kalambank', 'Kartikpatini', 'Chakaakhi', 'Dhala Patni', 'dudeshwar', 'lilabati' and 'luna' (which means salt and is highly resistant to saline conditions). Flood resistant rice varieties include 'jalaj', 'Abhiman', 'Bhutna', 'Sada dhepa', 'Sada pankul', 'Jal Kalas' (which means the water pot), 'Bagada', 'Betana', 'Bhundi', 'Champi', 'Fareka', 'Indrijiba', 'Madia', 'Kala bagada'.

In regions that face floods and salt water ingress, these varieties offer security under climate change.

But rice does not only grow in wet regions. We have also saved hundreds of draught tolerant rices such as 'Bhat kalaon', 'Chaina', 'Gyarsu', 'Jhumka', 'Ramjawain Ukhri', 'Asan leija', 'Bhut moni', 'Kaya', 'Loha', 'Gora', 'Nata', 'Raja Manik' etc. These are rain fed rices which need no irrigation.

And there are many varieties of other crops, which have the potential to evolve and help us face the growing water scarcity due to melting of glaciers and reduced precipitation. The draught resistant native wheats, and the millets like ragi, phangora, koni, bajra, jowar are 'forgotten foods' which are foods of the future.

Secondly, Genetic engineering will only allow corporations to take these seeds, appropriate their traits, patent them and deny them without heavy royalty payments. Genetic engineering does not create the traits for draught and flood tolerance and salt tolerance; it merely allows the transfer of traits across species. But through the transfer it promotes patents and intellectual property rights on properties and traits which came from the biological commons.

In Navdanya we are creating community seed banks for climate emergencies so that the widest varieties of crops are valuable to communities to respond to climate related disasters. And this diversity is available as a commons.

Diversity and the commons are the two insurances in times of uncertainties and unpredictability. Diversity gives us the basis to evolve and adapt under changing conditions, with changes that cannot be anticipated at the local level in space and time.

Climate change is not a linear phenomenon of warming everywhere, or more rain or less rain. It is a non-linear phenomenon, and it is better to talk of climate chaos than climate change or global warming.

In the context of climate chaos, diversity is a principle of adaption. Monocultures and uniformity are recipes for breakdown.

While at the ecological level, we need diversity to respond to climate chaos, at the social and political level, we need the commons. Monopolies and concentration of ownership of resources enhance vulnerability in periods of chaos.

The mechanistic paradigms on which genetic engineering, intellectual property rights and patents on seeds, and globalized corporate control over the food systems are based have given us climate chaos. They cannot help in adaption and our future evolution. As Einstein said, you cannot solve problems using a mind set that created it. Mechanistic thought creates monocultures of the mind, and we must move beyond monoculture of the mind to protect the earth's rich diversity and use it is insurance for responding to climate chaos.

Humanity has eaten more than 80,000 edible plants through its evolution. More than 3000 have been used consistently. However, we now rely on just eight crops to provide 75 per cent of the world's food. And with genetic engineering, production has narrowed down to three crops - Corn, Soya and Canola.

Monocultures are destroying biodiversity, our health, and the quality and diversity of food.

Our bodies need diverse nutrients. Biodiversity provides these diverse nutrients. Industrial agriculture has produced nutritionally empty food lacking in vital trace elements and micronutrients. There is now an attempt to "add" nutrients through genetic engineering "Golden rice" was one such example. However, foods such as coriander and then 700 times more vit A than genetically engineered "golden rice" can provide. And coriander leaves and curry leaves do not just give nutrients, they give taste also.

If we do not produce food in ways that respects the laws of nature - the same laws that govern Gaia and our bodies - then both Gaia's health and human health will continue to deteriorate. If we allow food to be reduced to a commodity to be traded for profit, food will be genetically engineered and it will be transformed into ethanol and biodiesel to run cars. People will be denied food energy to continue supply of fuel to an ever expanding automobile industry. Commodities are

a) Substitutable
b) Accessed through commerce and trade

Food as commodity implies that its quality will continue to decline and it will not be available in adequate quantity to sustain human beings, especially the poor and vulnerable. To ensure that everyone has food we need to prevent agriculture being dominated by global corporations. We need to defend our small farmers because only small farms lend themselves to an economy of cars, and care is necessary to produce good food. If we care for the earth and for our farmers, we will get good food.

An agriculture based on biodiversity, on care for the land and respect for our bodies can simultaneously solve the three problems of

1. the environmental crisis
2. the farmers' crisis
3. the public health crisis related to lack of food and spread of bad food.

Good food for all is not just possible it has become a necessity.