Food Sovereignty

Navdanya has led the national and international movement for biosafety and against the dangers of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in agriculture. Working with citizens’ movements, grassroot organizations, NGOs and governments, we have made significant contributions to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Biosafety Protocol.

Contrary to the three myths i.e. the myth of feeding the hunger, protecting the planet and food safety, that are being used to make genetic engineering the dominant technology used in the production and processing of food, our research and campaigns have highlighted the deepening crisis of hunger and starvation, debt and farmers suicides caused by high cost but unreliable GM and hybrid seeds. In the field of food and agriculture, we have raised serious concerns about the ecological and health impacts of GMOs.

Since 1991 we have been campaigning against the commercialization of GM crops and foods in India and have highlighted the dangerous effects of these crops and foods on our biodiversity, environment and health. We are seriously involved in enlightening the public at large on its harmful effects. Freedom from GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS (GMOS)

Since 1997, Navdanya is actively monitoring the GM related activities and development in India and conducted field surveys on the performance of Bt. cotton every year during the field trials as well as after its commercialization and proved companies and governments’ claims deceitful and fallacious. Through The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE), we have also filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Supreme Court in 1999, which is still continuing in June 2005, against US seed giant MONSANTO and Indian authorities for the illegal and unauthorized ways through which GMOs has been introduced in India and field trials of these crops were conducted, violating the environmental laws and bypassing regulatory, and without involving and informing the local authorities and the local public.

RFSTE and other groups concerned have demanded that the Government of India fulfill their obligation towards the Indian farmers, Indian consumers, our environment, our diversity and our very agriculture by imposing a 10 years moratorium immediately on the irreversible release of GMOs in this country. We therefore must act fast. Let’s get together and demand for complete ban on GM seeds and foods in India. Reclaiming the Intellectual and BIOLOGICAL COMMONS.

The new IPR laws embodied in the TRIPs agreement of WTO have unleashed an epidemic of the piracy of nature’s creativity and millennia of indigenous innovation. RFSTE/ Navdanya started the campaign against biopiracy with the Neem Campaign in 1994 and mobilized 1,00,000 signatures against neem patents and filed a legal opposition against the USDA and WR Grace patent on the fungicidal properties of neem (no. 436257 B1) in the European Patent Office (EPO) at Munich, Germany. Along with RFSTE, the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) of Germany and Ms. Magda Alvoet, former Green Member of the European Parliament were party to the challenge.

The patent on Neem was revoked in May 2000 and it was reconfirmed on 8th March 2005 when the EPO revoked in entirety the controversial patent, and adjudged that there was “no inventive step” involved in the fungicide patent, thus confirming the ‘prior art’ of the use of Neem.

In 1998, Navdanya started a campaign against Basmati biopiracy (Patent No. 5663484) of a US company RiceTec. On Aug 14th 2001 Navdanya achieved another victory against biopiracy and patent on life when the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) revoked a large section of the patent on Indian Basmati rice by the US corporations RiceTec Inc.

These included

• the generic title of the RiceTec patent No. 5663484, which earlier referred to Basmati rice lines;
• the sweeping and false claims of RiceTec having ‘invented’, traits of rice seeds and plants including plant height, grain length, aroma which are characteristics found in our traditional Basmati varieties and
• claims to general methods of breeding which was also piracy of traditional breeding done by farmers and our scientists (of the 20 original claims only three narrow ones survived).

The next major victory against biopiracy for Navdanya came in October 2004 when the European Patent Office in Munich revoked Monsanto’s patent on the Indian variety of wheat “Nap Hal”. This was the third consecutive victory on the IPR front after Neem and Basmati, making it the third consecutive victory. This was made possible under the Campaign against Patent on Life as well as against Biopiracy respectively. MONSANTO, the biggest seed corporation, was assigned a patent (EP 0445929 B1) on wheat on 21 May 2003 by the European Patent Office in Munich under the simple title “plants”.

On January 27th 2004 Research Foundation for Science Technology and Ecology (RFSTE) along with Greenpeace and Bharat Krishak Samaj (BKS) filed a petition at the European Patent Office (EPO), Munich, challenging the patent rights given to Monsanto on Indian Landrace of wheat, Nap Hal. The patent was revoked in October 2004 and it once again established the fact that the patents on biodiversity, indigenous knowledge and resources are based on biopiracy and there is an urgent need to ban all patents on life and living organisms including biodiversity, genes and cell lines.

Through citizen actions, we have won three-biopiracy battles and have thus contributed to the defense of farmers’ rights, indigenous knowledge and biodiversity. Navdanya’s focus on collective, cumulative innovation embodied in indigenous knowledge has created a worldwide movement for the defence of the intellectual rights of the communities.