CELEBRATING THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF BIJA VIDYAPEETH


February 23 - 26, 2010
Seeds Sovereignty
This course will cover -
- Seed Saving and Biodiversity Conservation
- Patents, Intellectual Property Rights and Biopiracy
- Genetic Engineering and Genetic Contamination
- Farmers Right to Save and Exchange Seeds in Freedom


April 11 - 13, 2010
Grandmothers' University : Women, Biodiversity & Traditional Knowledge.

V. S. Naipaul once said: “As a child I knew almost nothing, nothing beyond what I had picked up in my grandmother's house”.

Knowledge is the most powerful and has the most meaning when it is rooted in history, tradition and our ancestral heritage. The principal objective of the Grandmother’s University is to make ‘Earth Democracy’ grow stronger and spread across the generations. We aim to do this trough a deeper and better understanding of eco-feminism and the way in which our grandmothers lived on ‘earth’. They understood the need to preserve; the need to respect nature and not take for granted our precious natural resources.

In the name of growth and development we have used scientific and technological knowledge to batter the earth and abuse all of our natural resources. The courses at the Grandmother’s University use women’s traditional knowledge to shape our planet’s, therefore our, future!

The course will cover the following:

1. Grandmother’s Knowledge are a bridge to the future
2. Biodiversity in the Kitchen : Cooking with foods of the future and cooking with greens
3. Healing Plants


July 11, 2010
Amrapali : Mango Festival

Join the mango tasting of Navdanya's mango diversity at the Navdanya Farm in Dehradun. Explore 9 varieties of mangoes, Learn how to cook with mangoes and discover how the mango has inspired art, design and culture in India.

September 3 - 5, 2010
Soil Not Oil : Securing Food Security through Organic Farming in Times of Climate Change

In the wake of the recent failure of the Copenhagen Climate Summit, this course has become all the more relevant. Eating oil is used at various stages of agriculture; and fossil fuels are at the heart of industrial agriculture. They cause pollution of the soil, air and water.

Through this course we want to teach people that organic farming is the way forward. Studies have shown that the best solution to reduce global warming and famine is organic farming. Navdanya has done various studies on organic farming and climate change, and they show that organic farming increases carbon absorption by about 55%.

The main objective of the course is to make people understand that industrialised, globalised agriculture is rooted in the use of oil. And this is harmful to the environment and the earth. The alternative is bio diverse, organic systems of food which are based on the better use of soil.


November 24 - December 4, 2010
Gandhi and Globalisation

The course on Gandhi and Globalisation will address the multiple crisis that globalization has unleashed – the economic crisis, the ecological crisis and the political crisis. The economic crisis is now being felt worldwide including in prosperous Europe and USA. The high resource demand of globalization is creating resource wars across the planet – wars over land, wars over water, wars over seed and wars over food. This is increasing violence and militarization.

Corporate globalization has also undermined representative democracy making States representative of corporate interest rather than public interest.

Gandhi’s philosophy and politics is more relevant than ever before in finding ways to live peacefully, equitably and sustainably on this fragile planet. The course will explore the contemporary relevance of Gandhi’s key concepts of Swaraj, Swadeshi and Satyagraha.

The course will show how Gandhi’s observation that the earth has enough for everyone’s needs and not for some peoples greed can be translated into emerging movements for the defense of the earth and peoples rights.

Teachers include -  Mr. Satish Kumar, Dr. Vandana Shiva and Venerable Samdhong Rinpoche