Gathering in the Name of Seed Sovereignty
Posted on Thursday, March 18th, 2010
Navdanya’s Bija Vidyapeeth held its Seed Sovereignty workshop on the biodiversity conservation farm outside Dehradun February 24–26. Quickly following Navdanya’s International Conference on Two Decades of the GMO-Free Movement in New Delhi, the programme zeroed in on seeds and biodiversity as the answer to the spreading devastation of industrial agriculture, GMOs, and seed monopolies. Sixty farmers, seed bank coordinators, physicians, scholars, and documentary filmmakers from all over the world attended—exchanging their stories, information, inspiration, and ideas for the future of the seed sovereignty movement.
Democratic Choice
Posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010
By Dr. Vandana Shiva
Biotech technicians neither have the knowledge of gene ecology nor the expertise in multiple disciplines
Photo by IRRI Images
After the minister of environment Jairam Ramesh announced a moratorium on Bt brinjal, article after article in the media has denounced the decision, saying such decisions should be left to ‘scientists.’ The issue is however not science vs anti-science. It is reductionist science vs systems science. The moratorium took into account the best of science.
Many scientists have called for caution and for full and independent assessment. Dr Pushpa Bhargava, the leading scientist who established genetic engineering in India, has been the most vocal voice against Bt brinjal. The so called ‘scientists’ speaking most vociferously for Bt brinjal are in fact ‘technicians’ who are using an outmoded reductionist science to develop GM crops for corporations like Monsanto/Mahyco.