“Wherever you are, even if all you have is a balcony, declare your seed freedom.” With this rallying cry, Dr. Vandana Shiva, the international face of Navdanya and the anti-GMO movement, called the interns at the Navdanya farm to action in creating a resource handbook for the “Seeds of Freedom, Gardens of Hope” international campaign for seed freedom.
On Sunday, Vandanaji visited the Navdanya farm and sat with the interns for about an hour, learning a little bit about our interests and sharing an abundance of her knowledge. We covered topics ranging from genetically-modified seeds to open source knowledge, seed-saving to the commons, health care to physics.
As she imparted her knowledge, Vandanaji called us toward communal living and communal action. Addressing Garrett Hardin’s notion of the Tragedy of the Commons, she pointed toward communal management of the commons, which is practiced effectively in India in some areas even today. Even in the United Kingdom, she said, it took years to kick people off of the common lands in order to privatize them, the basis of Hardin's theory. With the notion of the Tragedy of the Commons, we lost the idea of community and our capacity as self-regulating entities. These are the notions that we seek to regain through community gardens (something many of the current interns expressed some interest in) and seed freedom.
Last year, Navdanya launched the Seeds of Freedom campaign for seed freedom, with its Fortnight of Action 2 October – 16 October, in response to the double pressures of having to purchase GMO seeds yearly from the patent-holders and the reduction of alternatives through WTO and government rules and loss of local knowledge and seed stores. This year, they are expanding the movement to become “Seeds of Freedom, Gardens of Hope” to use the existing community garden movement to increase the involvement of cities and strengthen the seed-saving movement to increase Bija Swaraj or seed-sovereignty.
Most importantly, Dr. Shiva called on us and individuals and communities everywhere to get involved. Real freedom, she said, comes from collective self-organizing. Laws will follow behavioral changes, but we cannot wait for the laws to change to begin acting since the legal framework is so heavily controlled by corporations.
2 comments:
I like your blog on what you've accomplished in India. I have to say I'm jealous that you've been able to see in-person what interests you outside the US. I would've liked to be in Mali, Nigeria or Sudan over the past few years to see, and possibly contribute to, situations there. How did you get involved with India?
I've been to Cairo, though it was merely studying abroad while in law school and we didn't really contribute to anything. This was before the uprising.
Hi Wesley,
Thanks for your comment! I was fortunate to have a friend spending a year in India and some down time at work, so it made my trip easier. I met so many people who had saved up some money and were just traveling, though. Now that I've had this experience, I might have to make travel more of a priority in my life. To me, though, travel is primarily about learning, not contributing. It's always a bonus to feel like I'm not just taking, but I travel to learn things I can bring with me into my daily life. Studying abroad is very much a part of this! I hope you are able to create the opportunities to travel that you want!
Post a Comment