About Navdanya

Mission

To protect nature and peole's rights to knowledge, biodiversity, water and food.

Statement

Navdanya’s mission is to promote peace and harmony, justice and sustainability. We strive to achieve these goals through the conservation, renewal and rejuvenation of the gifts of biodiversity we have received from nature and our ancestors, and to defend these gifts as commons. The setting up of community seed banks is central to our mission of regenerating nature’s and peoples wealth. Keeping seeds, biodivdersity and traditional knowledge in people’s hands to generate livelihoods and provide basic needs is our core programme for removal of poverty.

Navdanya’s mission focuses on improving the well being of small and marginalized rural producers through non violent biodiverse organic farming and fair trade. Biodiverse organic farming produces more food and nutrition and brings higher incomes to farmers than monocultures and chemical farming. While avoiding environmental harm, biodiverse organic farming is also an insurance in times of climate change.

Our vision of Earth Democracy is translated into a mission of creating biodiversity and seed sovereignty, food sovereignty and water democracy.

The defense of seed, food and water sovereignty (Bija Swaraj, Anna Swaraj, Jal Swaraj) is necessary for fulfilling our mission of bringing prosperity to communities of small agricultural producers thus sowing the seeds of peace and prosperity. We are therefore committed to resist patents on seeds and life forms promoted by the TRIPS agreement of WTO which lead to the privatization of biodiversity and piracy of traditional knowledge (Bija Satyagraha). We have successfully challenged biopiracy patents on neem, basmati and wheat. We are building the living democracy movement “Jaiv Panchayat” to defend biodiversity as a commons. We are committed to promoting alternatives to non-sustainable agricultural technologies based on toxic chemicals and genetic engineering. We are committed to changing the rules of unfair trade force on small peasants through the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, which are leading to destitution, debt and farmers suicides.

Our mission is to create living economies based on living democracy, with producers and consumers shaping their food cultures through participation and partnerships through cooperation and caring. Our mission is to promote organic fair trade, based on fairness to the earth and all her species, fairness to producers and fairness to consumers. We will expand our network of outlets and cafes to create another food culture, which respects diversity, local production and food quality. In partnership with similar movements like The Commission on the Future of Food and Slow Food, we are committed to creating a future of food and agriculture in which small farmers prosper and biodiversity and cultural diversity thrives.

Biodiverse small organic farms increase productivity, improve rural incomes and strengthen ecological security. Large-scale industrial monocultures displace and dispossess small farmers and peasants, destroy the environment and create malnutrition and public health hazards. Our mission is to provide alternatives to a global food system, which is denying one billion people access to food, and denying another 1.7 billion the right to healthy food, as they become victims of obesity and related diseases. Our mission is to provide “good food for all” through the promotion of biodiverse organic farming, food literacy and fair trade. We work with children so that future generations grow up healthy and free of disease, they can make informed food choices.

With school children and street children we design “little Chefs” programmes to create a culture of taste, quality, health and nutrition among our little ones. Our mission is to keep food security in women’s hands through our network of women’s producer groups (Mahila Anna Swaraj). Women are the custodians of biodiversity, the providers of food security, the preservers and processors of food, the conservers of the cultural diversity of food traditions. The future of food depends on keeping women’s food knowledge and expertise alive. That is why our movement “Diverse Women for Diversity” is at the heart of our mission for the protection of biological and cultural diversity. Our mission is to meet peoples needs while protecting the earth, defending our ecological and intellectual heritage, and strengthen livelihood and food security.

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From the Founder

Mission

Vision

The Practice of Earth Democracy

Organisation

Overview