Vandana Shiva speaks at a mass convention organised by KMSS on Sunday. Picture by UB Picture

Jorhat, Nov. 11: Pro-earth movement activist Vandana Shiva asked the people of Assam to defend peoples’ rights and preserve their precious resources, freedom and democracy at Dibrugarh University today.

In her lecture on Challenges to Sustainable Farming from Globalisation and Climate Change, organised by the department of political science, Dibrugarh University, in collaboration with ActionAid India (NERO) and People’s Right Forum, Assam, Shiva hinted that because of unfair practices, an agrarian crisis had been created in India.

One of these was the impact of the monopoly created by the intellectual property rights (IPR) regime.

She accused a particular seed company of indulging in bio-piracy when it took seeds and put toxic genes in them.

“Genetic engineering is infiltrating the system with widespread adverse ramifications. Corporations have the powers to silence research, which prevents the masses from learning about the reality of consuming genetically engineered products. The trading mechanism is also under pressure from agents seeking to impose patenting on seeds, originally not allowed under Indian law,” she said.

She said there was an effort to contain diversity by imposing fines on farmers who strayed from uniformity in food production, which benefited only the large global industries.

“The concept of monoculture in crop patterns has led to several problems in the world today,” she said.

She asked the people here to guard against such practices, especially in a place so full of bio-diversity.

Shiva also criticised the non-sustainability of Green Revolution, which she said had been proven, as it had adversely affected water availability as well as soil and health conditions.

“The Green Revolution did not lead to prosperity as hoped. Instead, it unleashed a vicious circle where the cost of production became higher than the earnings of the farmers, which in turn had an impact on minimum selling price. The system of procurement from farmers ran into problems and we now face a situation where 17 million tonnes of grains rot while malnutrition and hunger claim the lives of many,” she said.

Shiva called this the “clogged artery of the food distribution system”.

Her sister, Mira Shiva, said the IPR regime had been instituted to protect big companies and was not promoting public health. “Several big Indian companies have had deals with foreign companies, which bode ill for the access to food and medicine for the masses. These mergers and acquisitions and patenting had led to a rise in prices of drugs,” she said.