The Great Seed Robbery: Dr Shiva’s latest

article on The Asian Age

Posted on Monday, May 2nd, 2011

Dr Vandana Shiva

As Published on The Asian Age, 27th April 2011

The seed, the source of life, the embodiment of our biological and cultural diversity, the link between the
past and the future of evolution, the common property of past, present and future generations of farming
communities who have been seed breeders, is today being stolen from the farmers and being sold back to
us as “propriety seed”

owned by corporations like the US-headquartered Monsanto.

Under pressure from the Prime Minister’s Office, various state governments are signing MoUs
(memorandums of understanding) with seed corporations to privatise our rich and diverse genetic heritage.
For example, the government of Rajasthan has signed seven MoUs with Monsanto, Advanta, DCM-Shriram,
Kanchan Jyoti Agro Industries, PHI Seeds Pvt. Ltd, Krishidhan Seeds and J.K. Agri Genetics.
The Rajasthan government’s MoU with Monsanto, for example, focuses on maize, cotton, and vegetables
(hot pepper, tomato, cabbage, cucumber, cauliflower and water melon). Monsanto controls the cottonseed
market in India and globally. Monsanto also controls 97 per cent of the worldwide maize market and 63.5 per
cent of the genetically-modified (GM) cotton market. DuPont, in fact, had to initiate anti-trust investigations in
the US because of Monsanto’s growing seed monopoly.
Sixty Indian seed companies have licensing arrangements with Monsanto, which has the intellectual
property on Bt. cotton.
In addition, Monsanto has cross-licensing arrangements with BASF, Bayer, DuPont, Sygenta and Dow to
share patented, genetically-engineered seed traits with each other. The giant seed corporations are not
competing with each other. They are competing with peasants and farmers over the control of the seed
supply. And, in effect, monopolies over seed are being established through mergers and cross-licensing
arrangements.
Monsanto, which controls 95 per cent of the cottonseed market, has pushed the price of seed from `7 per kg
to `3,600 per kg, with nearly half being royalty payments. It was extracting `1,000 crores per annum as
royalty from Indian farmers before Andhra Pradesh sued it in the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade
Practices Commission.
The commodified seed is ecologically incomplete and ruptured at two levels: First, it does not reproduce
itself, while, by definition, seed is a regenerative resource. Genetic resources are thus, through technology,
transformed from a renewable into a non-renewable resource. Second, it does not produce by itself; it needs
the help of purchased inputs. And, as the seed and chemical companies merge, the dependence on inputs
will increase.
The failure of hybrid sunflower in Karnataka and hybrid maize in Bihar has cost poor farmers hundreds of
crores of rupees. There are no liability clauses in the MoUs to ensure farmers’ rights and protection from
seed failure.
The seeds that will be used for essentially derived varieties by corporations like Monsanto are originally
farmers’ varieties. The Farmers’ Rights and Plant Genetic Resources Act is a law to protect farmers’ rights,
but nothing in the MoUs acknowledges, protects or guarantees farmers’ rights. It is, therefore, violative of the
Farmers’ Rights Act.
The MoUs are one-sided and biased in favour of corporate intellectual property rights. The Monsanto MoU
states: “Monsanto’s proprietary tools, techniques, technology, know-how and intellectual property rights with
respect to the crops shall remain the property of Monsanto although utilised in any of the activities outlined
as part of the MoU”. So the issue here is not technology, but seed monopoly.
What is being termed a public-private partnership (PPP) and is being conducted under the supervision of the
state is, in fact, the great seed robbery.
Rajasthan is an ecologically fragile area. Its farmers are already vulnerable. It is a crime to increase their
vulnerability by allowing corporations to steal their genetic wealth and then sell them patented, genetically
engineered, ill-adapted seeds. We must defend seeds as our commons. We must protect the seeds of life
from the seeds of suicide.
Farmers breed for resilience and nutrition. Industrial breeding responds to intensive chemical and water
inputs so that seed companies can increase profits. The future of the seed, the future of the food, the future
of farmers lies in conservation of the biodiversity of our seed. Navdanya’s research also shows that
biodiversity-based ecological agriculture produces more food than monocultures.
Hybrids and Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) produce less nutrition per acre and are vulnerable to
climate change, pests and disease. Replacing agro-biodiversity with hybrid and GM crops is a recipe for
food insecurity. The MoUs will, in effect, facilitate bio-piracy of Rajasthan’s rich biodiversity of drought-
resilient crops, which become more valuable in times of climate change. By failing to have any clauses that
respect the Biodiversity Act and the Farmers’ Rights Act, the MoUs promote biopiracy and legalise the great
seed robbery.
According to the MoUs, private companies’ seed distribution will be based on “seed supply and distribution
arrangements involving leverage of extensive government-owned network”. In other words, selling hybrids
and then GMOs will be subsidised by allowing the use of public land for “technology demonstration farms to
showcase products, technology and agronomic practices on land made available by the government of
Rajasthan”.
Besides the handing over of seed and land, “Monsanto will be helped in the establishment of infrastructure
towards the fulfilment of the collaboration objectives specified above through access to relevant capital
subsidy and other schemes of the government of Rajasthan”.
While public resources will be freely given away to Monsanto as a subsidy, Monsanto’s Intellectual Property
Rights (IPR) monopolies will be protected. This is an MoU for “Monsanto takes all, the public system gives
all”.
It is clearly an MoU for privatisation of our seed and genetic wealth, our knowledge, and a violation of
farmers’ rights.
Seed sovereignty is the foundation of food sovereignty. Seed freedom is the foundation of food freedom.
The great seed robbery threatens both. It must be stopped.

PRESS STATEMENT ON STOP THE LAND WARS

AND LAND GRAB

On 17th May 2011, Navdanya held a Press

Conference on the topic of Land grab and Land
wars to call for an end to unjust land acquisition
for private profits masked under the cloak of
public purpose. Across the length and breadth
of India, from Bhatta in Uttar Pradesh to
Jagatsinghpur in Orissa to Jaitapur in
Maharashtra, the Government has declared war
on our farmers, our Annadetas in order to grab
their fertile farmland. Their instrument is the
colonial Land Acquisition Act of 1984, implemented and used by foreign rulers
against Indian citizens.

Farmer leaders Kesari Singh Gujjar and Satpal Chaudary from Uttar Pradesh
attended the Press Meet along with Kishan Bir Chaudary and fellow farmer
leaders to provide a direct account of the atrocities taking place in UP: in the
Greater Noida region, 28 lakh hectares of land have been acquired over the last
few years, and 28 lakh hectares more are to be acquired in the next 2 years.
Because of land grabs, over 10 lakh of UP youth finds itself unemployed in the
face of rampant land speculation: land which is bought from farmers at Rs
300/square metre, is sold for Rs 1,30,000 and ultimately valued at over Rs 6 lakh
for private profits.

In Bhatta Parsual, (UP) farmers have been protesting since January 17th against
the unjust acquisition of about 6000 acres of land by infrastructure company
Jaiprakash Associates to build luxury townships and sports cities in the garb of
building the Yamuna Expressway. Farmer leaders estimate that against official
figures of 4, the actual number of deaths is at least 70 in a situation where police
terror and repression have been unleashed through bullets, fire and rapes on
peaceful and unarmed people demanding justice and respect of their rights.
Kishan Bir Chaudary rightfully asks “How much more blood will the Government
take before it stops these land wars?”.

Similarly in Jaitapur, police opened fire on peaceful protestors demonstrating

against the proposed Nuclear Power Park at Jaitapur, Ratnagiri, Maharashtra
where one person died and about 8 were seriously injured on 18th of April 2011.
The Jaitapur nuclear plant will be the biggest in the world to be built by the
French company AREVA. After the Fukushima disaster the protest has intensified
as has the governments stubbornness.

A similar situation is also brewing in Jagatsinghpur, Orissa, where 20 battalion

are to be deployed to assist in the anti-constitutional land acquisition to protect
the stake of India’s largest FDI – the POSCO Steel project. The government has
set the target of destroying 40 betel farms a day to facilitate the land grab. The
betel farms bring the farmers an earning of rupees 4 lakhs an acre. The Anti
POSCO movement in its 5 years of peaceful protest has faced state violence
numerous times and is now gearing up for another perhaps final, non-violent and
democratic resistance.

While the Constitution recognizes the rights of the people and the Panchayats to
democratically decide the issues of land and development, the Government is
overlooking due-process and constitutional rights, behaving as the foreign rulers
did, appropriating land through violence for the profits of corporations- Jaypee in
UP for the Yamuna expressway, POSCO for Orissa and AREVA in Jaitapur.

The use of violence and destruction of livelihoods that the current trend is
reflecting is destroying the country’s democratic fabric and is dangerous for the
survival of the Indian nation state itself. These land wars have serious
consequences for our democracy, our peace and our ecology, our food security
and the rural livelihoods. The land wars must stop if India is to survive
ecologically and democratically. Land is not about building concrete jungles as
proof of your growth and development but is the progenitor of food and water, a
basic for human survival. Considering that today India claims to be a booming
economy and yet is unable feed more that 40% of its children is matter of
national shame.

What India needs today is not a land grab policy through an amended colonial
land acquisition act but a land conservation policy which conserves our vital eco-
systems such as the fertile Gangetic plan and coastal regions for their ecological
functions and contribution to food security. The proposed Amendment to the
Land Acquisition Act will not stop the land grab and land wars. By replacing
courts with a centralized authority it robs the farmers of access to the legal
system which in many cases has stopped land grab. The Act is based on Private
Public Partnerships which allow private corporations to hide behind the public
face; as Kishan Bir Chaudary puts it, PPP actually stands for “Pijao, pijao, pijao”.

Handing over fertile land to private corporations who are becoming the new
zamindars cannot be defined as public purpose. This definition is too loose and
wide and it allows land grab for the Yamuna Expressway, the Jaitapur Nuclear
plant, the Posco project. Creating multiple privatized super highways and
expressways does not qualify as necessary infrastructure. The real infrastructure
India needs is the ecological infrastructure for food security and water security.
Burying our fertile food producing soils under concrete and factories is burying
the country’s future. The country needs a paradigm shift. It needs a democratic
process to replace the colonial hangover.

While the country democratically debates the future of land we call on the
government to:-

• Freeze all land grab

• Stop all police action against farmers defending their land rights
• Shift the policy discussion from land acquisition to Land
conservation for the country’s food and water security.
• Identify ecologically rich and fertile farmland as “No Go Areas”
for land use change

Hunger, by design
Posted on Thursday, March 3rd, 2011

BY VANDANA SHIVA
MAR 03 2011
Why is every fourth Indian hungry? Why is every third woman in India anaemic and malnourished? Why is
every second child underweight and stunted? Why has the hunger and malnutrition crisis deepened even as
India has nine per cent growth? Why is “Shining India” a “Starving India”?
In my view, hunger is a structural part of the design of the industrialised, globalised food system. Hunger is
an intrinsic part of the design of capital-intensive, chemical-intensive monocultures of industrial agriculture,
also called the “Green Revolution”.
India’s Green Revolution from 1940s to 1970s was neither green, nor revolutionary. It merely created a
market for corporations by transforming war chemicals into agrichemicals and breeding crops to respond to
high chemical inputs. It increased production of a few commodities — rice and wheat — at the cost of the
production of pulses, oilseeds, vegetables, fruits and millets. It focused on one region, Punjab, and pushed
the agriculture of other regions into neglect.
This is a design for scarcity.
Hunger is also designed into a non-sustainable production system in which costs of inputs are higher than
the price of outputs. The farmer gets trapped into a negative economy with debt, and suicide is an inevitable
consequence. The 2,00,000 farmer suicides since 1997 are part of the genocidal design of corporate-driven
high-cost agriculture.
There is now talk of a second Green Revolution in India. This one is based on genetic engineering, which is
being introduced into agriculture largely to allow corporations to claim intellectual property rights and patents
on seeds. The floodgate of patenting seeds was opened through the Trade Related Intellectual Property
Rights (TRIPS) agreement of World Trade Organisation (WTO).
When seed is transformed from a source of life into “intellectual property” which becomes a source of super
profits through royalty collections, both biodiversity and small farmers disappear. We have seen this happen
with Bt. Cotton.
The Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) of the WTO was designed to allow Cargill and other agribusiness
corporations access to world markets. This was done by forcing countries to remove import restrictions and
using $400 billion to subsidise and dump artificial cheap food commodities on the Third World. The case of
dumping of soya and destruction of India’s domestic edible oil production and distribution is an example of
how the global reach of multinational corporations creates hunger, driving down farm prices and destroying
local livelihoods.
Indian farmers are losing $25 billion every year to falling prices. While farm prices fall, food prices continue
to rise, creating a double burden of hunger for rural communities. This is why half of the hungry people in
India and the world are farmers.
Globalised forced trade in food, falsely called free trade, has aggravated the hunger crisis by undermining
food sovereignty and food democracy. With the deadlock in the Doha round of WTO, forced trade is being
driven by bilateral agreements such as the US-India Knowledge Initiative in Agriculture on the board of
which sit corporations like Monsanto, Cargill/ADM and Walmart.
Sadly, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, is trying to use the food crisis that his trade liberalisation
policies have been creating to hand over India’s seed supply to Monsanto, food supply to Cargill and other
corporations and retail to Walmart, in line with the US-India AoA signed with President Bush in 2005.
Speaking at a conference on food crisis and food inflation on February 4, 2011, Dr Singh said, “India needs
to shore up farm supply claims by bringing in organised retail players” (read Walmart). Research shows that
globalised, industrialised retail is destroying farmers’ livelihoods and leading to wastage of 50 per cent food.
This too is hunger by design.
Both the US and Indian governments are supporting US agri-business corporations to expand markets and
profits. Farmers’ rights and people’s right to food are extinguished as corporate rights to limitless profits
design “the market”. Instead of the right to food being sacred, “the market” becomes sacred.
When the Supreme Court of India told the government to distribute the food grain that was rotting in
godowns, Dr Singh said that giving food away free will kill the farmer’s incentive to produce and adversely
affect prices and wages. When the National Advisory Committee (NAC), headed by Sonia Gandhi, drafted a
Food Security Act, the Prime Minister-appointed Rangarajan Committee said that stepped-up procurements
could “distort” open market food prices. In other words, corporate rights to profit through creation of hunger
must be protected even as people die.
Planning Commission vice-chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia invited Gulf countries to farm in India and
export food to their countries during a visit to Muscat. A Bahrain firm, Nader and Ebrahim Group, recently
tied up with Pune-based Sanghar to grow bananas on 400 acres. Indian laws do not allow foreigners to buy
land. So the Planning Commission chief is encouraging foreign corporations to partner with Indian
companies for contract farming.
Diverting land from food for local communities to cash crops for the rich in US, Europe and the Gulf
countries is not a solution for hunger; this will aggravate the food crisis. This is not investment in agriculture,
it is land grab and food grab. To get rid of hunger we need a paradigm shift in the design of our food
systems.
We need to shift from monocultures to diversity, from chemical intensive to ecological, biodiversity-intensive,
from capital-intensive to low-cost farming systems. We need to shift from centralised, globalised food supply
controlled by a handful of corporations to decentralised, localised food systems that are resilient in the
context of climate vulnerability and price volatility. Such system could feed India’s population.
Industrial monocultures produce less food and nutrition per acre than biodiverse ecological farms.
Biodiversity organic farming, if adopted nationally, could provide enough calories for 2.4 billion, enough
protein for 2.5 billion, enough carotene for 1.5 billion, and enough folic acid for 1.7 billion pregnant women.
We must end hunger by building food democracy, by reclaiming our seed sovereignty, food sovereignty and
land sovereignty.
* Dr Vandana Shiva is the executive director of the Navdanya Trust