Vandana Shiva

NAVDANYA

Navdanya significa «9 semillas», que son el símbolo de la protección de la diversidad biológica y cultural, y también el «nuevo regalo» basado en el derecho de guardar y compartir las semillas.

SEED OF LOVE

In this earth
in this immaculate field
we shall not plant any seeds
except for compassion
except for love

SEED FREEDOM, BY VANDANA SHIVA

HOY EN DÍA, CULTIVAR UN HUERTO ES EL ACTO MÁS REVOLUCIONARIO QUE EXISTE…

…Porque es una expresión de las posibilidades y del potencial de cada uno. Aprender a cultivar al menos una parte de tus alimentos en un tiempo de dictadura alimentaria, es revolucionario. Te garantizas tu propia comida. Y de paso te procuras tus propias semillas, y eso significa que eres parte del movimiento Seed Freedom. Cultivar un huerto es al mismo tiempo un acto de rebeldía y de esperanza. Una manera de decir: no me voy a rendir.

 

SEMILLAS DE LIBERTAD

LIDERADA POR VANDANA SHIVA

Las semillas son la fuente de la vida y la primera pieza de la cadena alimentaria.

El control sobre las semillas significa el control sobre nuestras vidas, sobre nuestra alimentación y sobre nuestra libertad.

Multinacionales como Monsanto han creado una verdadera emergencia de las semillas- una emergencia a través de las patentes de semillas, los monopolios de semillas, la biopirateria, la ingenieria genética y la creación de semillas estériles no renovables. Los monopolios de las semillas han provocado el suicidio colectivo de 250.000 agricultores en la India. Después de contaminar las semillas y los campos de cultivo de los agricultores, Monsanto demandó a los agricultores por «robar sus genes», cambiando el principio de «quien contamina paga» por el de a quien contamina se le tiene que pagar.

Ante una emergencia multidimensional, creada por las patentes de semillas y los Organismos Modificados Genéticamente, necesitamos una respuesta global y colectiva

Colectivamente, debemos parar las patentes de semillas.

Únete al movimiento global de Semillas de Libertad para parar el secuestro de las semillas y, con él, el secuestro de nuestra libertad y nuestro futuro.

Las semillas, patrimonio de la humanidad, empiezan a ser propiedad de monopolios corporativos. Se venden semillas patentadas, geneticamente modificadas para que no vuelvan a germinar
Lo que obliga a los campesinos a comprar semillas cada año. Semillas diseñadas para necesitar más pesticidas y fertilizantes elevando la producción a precios insostenibles.
En India los campesinos se ven obligados a vender sus tierras por su endeudamiento con las multinacionales. Más de 200.000 campesinos se han suicidado presas de la desesperación, muchos tomando los propios fertilizantes que les venden las multinacionales.

La esencia se encuentra en la biodiversidad.

SMALL IS REALLY BEAUTIFUL

In an age of obsession with everything big, we live under the illusion that bigger is better.

We tend to believe that we need big farms, big dams, big corporations to meet our needs for food and water. Giant corporations have grown bigger with five companies globally controlling the seed supply, food supply and water supply. Among these corporations are Monsanto, Cargill, Nestle, Suez and Wal-Mart. We assume that farms must grow bigger and bigger for food security.

But the reality is that “small is big” — ecologically, economically and politically. The future of food security in India and worldwide lies in protecting and promoting small farmers.
At the ecological level, we know that in a small seed lies the potential for producing thousands and millions of seed. And in each of those seeds lies the potential for thousand and million more such seeds. This is abundance. While the small farmer sows seeds, he prays, “May this seed be exhaustless”.

Yet, when seed is patented or biologically terminated by giant corporations, it cannot multiply or be reproduced. It produces zero seeds. The motto seems to be: “May this seed get exhausted so that our profits never exhaust.”
Small biodiverse farms produce more than large farms. In fact, output and income can be doubled by conserving seeds and intensifying biodiversity. The fact that small is big in agriculture has been known all along, yet big has been privileged as the basis of food security.

India’s former Prime Minister Charan Singh, who was an agricultural economist, had said that small farms are more productive than large farms. “Agriculture being a life process, in actual practice, under given conditions, yields per acre decline as the size of farm increases (in other words, as the application of human labour and supervision per acre decreases). The above results are well nigh universal: output per acre of investments is higher on small farms than on large farms. Thus, if a crowded, capital-scarce country like India has a choice between a single 100- acre farm and forty 2.5- acre farms, the capital cost to the national economy will be less if the country chooses the small farms”.
Small farms produce more food than large industrial farms because small farmers give more care to the soil, to plants and animals, and they intensify biodiversity, not external chemical inputs. As farms increase in size, they replace labour with fossil fuels for farm machinery and toxic chemicals. The caring work of farmers is replaced by harsh and careless technologies. Thus, food production per acre goes down.

Yes, a social tragedy and ecological catastrophe morphs into “myth of more”. And this myth of more is being sold to the world as a solution to hunger. The trick is to not measure total output of a farm, but just the “yield” of a monoculture commodity. Essentially, productivity is manipulated in two ways to project large farms as more productive.

First, the only input that counts is labour, not chemicals, land, water or fossil fuels. So the more small farmers and family farmers are displaced and replaced by chemicals and machines, the false calculus says productivity has increased. When natural resources are taken into account, industrial agriculture is, in fact, an inefficient agriculture, using 10 calories of input to produce one calorie of food.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, in spite of all subsidies going to large farms, in spite of all policies promoting industrial agriculture, even today 72 per cent food comes from small farms.
If we add kitchen gardens and urban gardens, the majority of food people eat is grown on a small scale. What is growing on large farms is not food; it is commodities. Only 10 per cent of the corn and soya taking over world agriculture is eaten. Ninety per cent goes to drive cars as biofuel or to animals in factory farms as feed. Small farms feed the world. Big farms spread poisons and hunger.
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s (UNCTAD) 2013 Trade and Environment Report states that monoculture and industrial farming methods are not providing sufficient affordable food where it is needed, while causing mounting and unsustainable environmental damage

An International Labour Organisation’s report — “Working towards sustainable development: Opportunities for decent work and social inclusion in a green economy” — shows that small-scale agriculture is the solution to the ecological crisis, the food crisis and the crisis of work and employment. The report cites examples of how small farms in Africa have increased food production through ecological agriculture.
In a project involving 1,000 farmers in South Nyanza, Kenya, who are cultivating two hectares each on average, crop yields rose by 2-4 tonnes per hectare after an initial conversion to organic farming. In yet another case, the incomes of some 30,000 smallholders in Thika, Kenya, rose by 50 per cent within three years.
The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, Technology for Development has also confirmed that small ecological farms are a more effective solution to world hunger than the Green Revolution or genetic engineering.

The living economies of the small need to join hands with the living democracies of the small to create peace and harmony, abundance and well-being.
Gandhi responded to the bigness of the British Empire by pulling out the spinning wheel. As he said, “Anything that millions can do together becomes charged with unique power… The wheel as such is lifeless, but when I invest it with symbolism, it becomes a living thing for me.”

The seed is small, but the powerhouse of life and freedom. Each of us can be savers of seed and growers of food. In Rumi’s words…

…in this earth
in this earth
in this immaculate field
we shall not plant any seeds
except for compassion
except for love

VANDANA SHIVA

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MOTHER EARTH

[draft 21 February 2010]

Preamble

We, the peoples of Earth:

gratefully acknowledging that Mother Earth gives us life, nourishes and teaches us and provides us with all that we need to live well;

recognizing that Mother Earth is an indivisible community of diverse and interdependent beings with whom we share a common destiny and to whom we must relate in ways that benefit Mother Earth;

acknowledging that by attempting to dominate and exploit Mother Earth and other beings, humans have caused severe destruction, degradation and disruption of the life-sustaining communities, processes and balances of Mother Earth which now threatens the wellbeing and existence of many beings;

conscious that this destruction is also harmful to our inner wellbeing and is offensive to the many faiths, wisdom traditions and indigenous cultures for whom Mother Earth is sacred;

acutely conscious of the critical importance and urgency of taking decisive, collective action to prevent humans causing climate change and other impacts on Mother Earth that threaten the wellbeing and survival of humans and other beings;

accepting our responsibility to one another, future generations and Mother Earth to heal the damage caused by humans and to pass on to future generations values, traditions, and institutions that support the flourishing of Mother Earth;

convinced that in order for communities of humans and other beings to flourish we must establish systems for governing human behavior that recognize the inalienable rights of Mother Earth and of all beings that are part of her;

convinced that the fundamental freedoms and rights of Mother Earth and of all beings should be protected by the rule of law, and that the corresponding duties of human beings to respect and defend these rights and freedoms should be enforced by law;

proclaim this Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth to complement the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to serve as a common standard by which the conduct of all human beings, organizations, and cultures can be guided and assessed; and

pledge ourselves to cooperate with other human communities, public and private organizations, governments, and the United Nations, to secure the universal and effective recognition and observance of the fundamental freedoms, rights and duties enshrined in this Declaration, among all the peoples, cultures and states of Earth.

Article 1 Fundamental rights, freedoms and duties

  1. Mother Earth is an indivisible, self-regulating community of interrelated beings each of whom is defined by its relationships within this community and with the Universe as a whole. Fundamental aspects of these relationships are expressed in this Declaration as inalienable rights, freedoms and duties.
  2. These fundamental rights, freedoms and duties arise from the same source as existence and are inherent to all beings, consequently they are inalienable, cannot be abolished by law, and are not affected by the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory within which a being exists.
  3. All beings are entitled to all the fundamental rights and freedoms recognized in this Declaration without distinction of any kind, such as may be made between organic, living beings and inorganic, non-living beings, or on the basis of sentience, kind, species, use to humans, or other status.
  4. Just as human beings have human rights, other beings may also have additional rights, freedoms and duties that are specific to their species or kind and appropriate for their role and function within the communities within which they exist.
  5. The rights of each being are limited by the rights of other beings to the extent necessary to maintain the integrity, balance and health of the communities within which it exists.

Article 2 Fundamental rights of Mother Earth

Mother Earth has the right to exist, to persist and to continue the vital cycles, structures, functions and processes that sustain all beings.

Article 3 Fundamental rights and freedoms of all beings

Every being has:

  • the right to exist;
  • the right to habitat or a place to be;
  • the right to participate in accordance with its nature in the ever-renewing processes of Mother Earth;
  • the right to maintain its identity and integrity as a distinct, self-regulating being;
  • the right to be free from pollution, genetic contamination and human modifications of its structure or functioning that threaten its integrity or healthy functioning; and
  • the freedom to relate to other beings and to participate in communities of beings in accordance with its nature.

Article 4 Freedom of animals from torture and cruelty

Every animal has the right to live free from torture, cruel treatment or punishment by human beings.

Article 5 Freedom of animals from confinement and removal from habitat

  1. No human being has the right to confine another animal or to remove it from its habitat unless doing so is justifiable with reference to the respective rights, duties and freedoms of both the human and other animal concerned.
  2. Any human being that confines or keeps another animal must ensure that it is free to express normal patterns of behavior, has adequate nourishment and is protected from injury, disease, suffering and unreasonable fear, pain, distress or discomfort.

Article 6 Fundamental duties of human beings

Human beings have a special responsibility to avoid acting in violation of this Declaration and must urgently establish values, cultures, and legal, political, economic and social systems consistent with this Declaration that:

  • promote the full recognition, application and enforcement of the freedoms, rights and duties set out in this Declaration;
  • ensure that the pursuit of human wellbeing contributes to the wellbeing of Mother Earth, now and in the future;
  • prevent humans from causing harmful disruptions of vital ecological cycles, processes and balances, and from compromising the genetic viability and continued survival of other species;
  • ensure that the damage caused by human violations of the freedoms, rights and duties in this Declaration is rectified where possible and that those responsible are held accountable for restoring the integrity and healthy functioning of affected communities; and
  • enable people to defend the rights of Mother Earth and of all beings.

Article 7 Protection of the law

Every being has –

  • the right to be recognised everywhere as a subject before the law;
  • the right to the protection of the law and to an effective remedy in respect of human violations or attacks on the rights and freedoms recognized in this Declaration;
  • the right to equal protection of the law; and
  • the right to equal protection against any discrimination by humans in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8 Human education

  1. Every human being has the right to be educated about Mother Earth and how to live in accordance with this Declaration.
  2. Human education must develop the full potential of human beings in a way that promotes a love of Mother Earth, compassion, understanding, tolerance and affection among all humans and between humans and other beings, and the observance of the fundamental freedoms, rights and duties in this Declaration.

Article 9 Interpretation

  1. The term “being” refers to natural beings which exist as part of Mother Earth and includes a community of other beings and all human beings regardless of whether or not they act as a corporate body, state or other legal person.
  2. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms in it.
  3. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as restricting the recognition of other fundamental rights, freedoms or duties of all or specified beings.