Vandana Shiva - Environmental Campaigner HARDtalk

operation. Egypt have called for a ceasefire. Now it is time for

HARDtalk. My guest today is the original tree hunger. The phrase

was coined back in the 1970s when she along with a group of women in

India hugged trees to stop them being chopped down. Vandana Shiva

has become known throughout the world for environmental campaigns.

She says 1 billion people go hungry in the world because of the way

about naive world view or could we end

poverty and improve everyone's life by returning to old ways of

Vandana Shiva, welcome to HARDtalk. My pleasure to be here. You have

said that when people are pushed into poverty rather than, as many

in the West prison, are lying there needing a rope to pull them out,

what do you mean by that? First, on the tree-hugging, I want to clarify

the tie was a young student volunteer. No one had to hug trees.

The woman said we would and did it have to be killed. This was deeply

connected to the issue of how poverty is created. Those logging

operations were creating revenue so there was more money but it left

less water, less for other, less fuel. Women bear the responsibility

for that. They were walking extra miles to fetch water. They said

that enough was enough. Poverty is created each time this a viable

base of people, especially women, is destroyed. Each time a life is

destroyed. Each time resources are grabbed. Is your argument that at

international companies took their greedy hands of things that

families, people in India, would be able to feed themselves? Would be

fine? They are two big issues related to India's contemporary

context. We have high levels of cruelty. If people were doing

better, they would not be fighting every time their land has grabbed.

One of the biggest political issues is land grabbing. The land of small

farmers, and no one can be a big far more in England because of land

reforms after independence, average land holdings are less than two

hectare us. -- India. That is when it comes from. When you lose that

and it is grab, that is poverty. You have been running a campaign

for seed freedom. You talk about the way people are enslaved by the

imagined when I was doing my P.H. D that I would spend so much of my

time looking at the issue of seed, agriculture, land use. I started in

the Movement for seed saving. I realised that corporations wanted

to patent seeds. Patents are granted for inventions. Seeds are

not invented. The only reason you take a patent is to collect

royalties. That means that Sid is renewable by its very nature is

made non-renewable. You see the consequences of this in India.

Since the big companies came in and took over seed supply, especially

in cotton, 270,000 farmers are committed suicide. Most of them are

driven by debt. The dead is caused by high cost, non-renewable seeds.

-- the debt. You are blaming the seed companies for those suicides?

I am not involved in the blame game. I am first and foremost a scientist.

I had done the studies. The correlations a clear. But the

suicides predate the introduction? A few suicides will always take

place in a society. Look at Spain since the crisis and the for

closures, how many people come up lost their homes have committed

suicide? The Government of India keeps track of farmers' suicides.

The graph starts to climb. It starts in 1997. Everyone accepts

that there is a big problem with suicides and farmers. The numbers,

whichever way you look... It began in 1997, 1998. It I would imagine

that you would accept that there are many reasons for farmers being

under pressure. Many people would challenger's suggestion that it is

down to the multinational companies. -- would challenge your suggestion.

Why are farmers trapped in dead when they were not earlier? There

are getting into debt for seed, chemicals because the seed are not

controlling pests. Our studies show an increase in pesticide use in the

area with the highest suicide rates. 8,000 % increase in the price of

seats. Farmers have always had to buy seed. No. That is the issue.

Seed has always been a renewable resource. Particularly in the hands

of women farmers. They were the bidders, the Conservatives. They

were the custodians of seed. -- breeders, concern over his. This

begins with the World Trade Organisation. The argument for the

patenting is that a company like Monsanto, they make the point that

what they are doing is adding value. The yield on the seeds is much

higher. They say no business can survive without being paid for its

product. The loss of revenue would hinder their ability to invest in

research and development to create new products that farmers want.

They are investing $2.6 million per day creating new products to bring

to the market. The farmers want this seed. There is a market for it.

Firstly, I was puzzled, why are performers using the products of

Monsanto? The public sector, the programme stops when a giant like

Monsanto enters. The cotton research institute, one of the top

and stitches in cotton, has not introduced a new variety. Are they

giving us something new that has value to citizens? No one. They're

offering genetically engineered products. The crop is producing a

higher yield. It is not. They claim it will introduce 1,500 kilograms.

doctcs. doctor who runs a gene campaign in

Delhi, she is an environmentalist in many ways. She says that if the

Government booted out Monsanto, it will not make the problems go away.

With the success of cotton was so huge, a parliamentary committee

would not after two years of deep study and talking to everyone

including the Monsantos have recommended to government that this

is the wrong path. If the crops were wonderful. The Government has

not accepted that argument. It is a dangerous argument. You have a

situation where it is widely accepted that the yields are

doubled. They haven't. That is a fraud. If yields had doubled, why

did farmers be in distress? yields better? No. Are they worth?

They are worse if you take the overall production of a farm.

Cotton has changed in India. You could have more cotton in the world,

and India. You could have more cotton and the farmer's field. It

does not produce more food. professor from Alabama says in the

ten years since the Cotton was introduced, cotton yields have

doubled in India. Cotton yields have doubled only because you don't

measure the biodiversity of a basket. So you accept that, and

yields have doubled. For your argument is that they have doubled

but other things have suffered. is not because of the technology

but because you're only growing cotton. So people who were not

doing it before are now a growing it? Cotton is an Indian crop.

Farmers have been growing and for centuries. This is the heart of the

matter. I yield is always measured from a single crop. Output measures

the whole basket full dog do you accept that yields have bubbled?

Not because of the technology. The green revolution and has also

claimed to have increased the yield of food. I am trying to help us

fall your argument. You are accepting that yields have doubled,

you accept that argument, but you are putting it down to something

else. I am putting it down to replacing diversity and mixtures of

crops do you grow many things to growing a single crop. It does not

matter how that crop was produced. We could be beaten, it could be

chemical, could be organic. That is the secret of increased yields. It

is yield of a single commodity. If this was the solution to hunger in

the world, why would so many people be hungry? What you have found is

that as a result of the increased yields, India is now an exporter of

that. It is the leading exporter in the world. Farmers are making money

out of it. Yes, some have suffered. It is not true because India

exported cotton during British rule. We had rights of -- riots around

the price of cotton. The price has fallen even as exports have

increased. More exports does not mean farmers earn more. It can

often mean farmers earn less. is a huge demand for it. There is a

closure of options. Why are form was only growing corn in Europe?

Why are farmers in Argentina only groyne soya? This is not a

reflection of choice. It is an reflection of the closure of choice.

Look at Green. We know that Green, offbeat, has gone up usually when

the last ten years, in fact over decades. India is now a country

that is Kibble of feeding itself. You go back to the Times that you

seem to be advocating a return to and it was a time when India

suffered from famines, was running up huge debts to import food to be

his own people. Three quick responses. There was a famine. 2

million people died. It was not because of lack of rice. It was

because the British Empire was extracting have the production of

rice. That is why a woman came out and led a movement saying they will

give their lives, not their rights. There was a call out of Bengal.

Secondly, it is true that we are growing a lot more rice and a lot

more heat but, exactly as in the case of cotton, this is by

replacing other crops. 2 million tonnes a rotting in the barns.

Every second Indian child is malnourished. Every 4th Indian is

hungry, something we have not had after independence. This is all a

result of it having been reduced to a commodity and being destroyed as

a source of livelihood on the one hand for the farmer and a human

What are you advocating? I use saying that India should go back to

the farming techniques of the 1960s? -- are due. Our work of the

last 25 years, since I started, the showing that we produce 2-3 times

more food per acre. This has more nutrition per acre because when you

grow food for nourishment, he maximise nutrition. We should have

-- explain that this campaign expanse the nine seats. The whole

focus on two aspects - 1, commodity production and two, chemicals are

so misguided. Only 2% of the soil in the US is be eaten as food. Only

8% of the colon, the rest is going for by your fuel. This is not a

food system so we have to go beyond it. We need futuristic work based

on the time last ecological principles of war the cycles.

have been campaigning for a return to organic farming. It is moving

ahead. Five states of India we are working with... Organic farming,

even in modern system, we look at the European system, yields are put

to beset Lola. We must focus on output. Output is double to trouble.

Output means the full basket of what you produce on the farm. You

need your oil seeds, you Deri, your fruit, your vegetables. It is a

trick of reducing the output to a single year old and then claiming

he produced more. Most of it goes to uses rather than fear. That is

the reason we have starvation. When I am advocating is what the UN is

advocating. There are reports showing there could be a threefold

increase in food production through ecological methods. The

international assessment of Science Technology Development, a body set

up by the UN, says there is only one way to go - ecological.

whether the problems India now has, you look at where it has come from

and you look at since 1991, economic reforms and we are talking

about these things happening at the same time, you had the average

growth of a % in that time period. This country has been doing... The

rest of the world is looking on at amazement. You are so critical.

Many people will think it sounds wonderful but naive. The reality of

India is that a huge growth rate by we're seeing. It has come through

converting people's wealth and resources into capital and riches

of a handful. I would not go into too much detail on that. If India's

growth rate was converting into higher food in time once, every

second child would not be wasted. This is government figures,

according to a survey. We can quite statistics at each other... Poverty

down from 45%. It depends on how you measure poverty. If you, a fire

everything, you will spend one -- he would spend more money.

country has got wealthier. No. In terms of education, it depends on

what you're measuring, again. Pramod education is suffering

deeply. Privatise education is growing. The provide to Asian of

health, food and education, these are the debates that are every day

debates in a parliament, on our streets. -- privatisation. The

Indian people are not doing well, if they have lost their land which

fed them. They're not doing well if they're going crash crops and

commodities for exports. Even the wealthy are doing badly on the food

front because we have become the hearts, the epicentre, pick-up --

of obesity because of junk food. I do not believe been thrown into a

junk food treadmill is progress. That is also... The answer to that

his education. I come back to this argument about where India has come

from and where it is going to. We look at wheat production. With

production rose from 10 million tonnes from the end of the 60s to

85 million tonnes a now. Per year. That is a phenomenal increase. That

is surely part of the answer to why the country... no. I work across

the length and breadth of my ecological farms. Everywhere ago,

people used to tell me that week was 1% -2 % of our diet. We had all

kinds of other grains. The only source of protein for vegetarians.

measured. You are from the middle classes. You don't really know what

it is like. I spent the last 25 years of my life working in the

farmers of India and the setting up a farm myself for research and

conservation. I measured every output of every plot of land. With

ecological systems, you can reduce water use, increased productivity,

get rid of fossil fuels. Let's go back in a sense to you tree-hugging

days, you were prepared to put your body in the way of a big company.

Is that what you want Indian people to do now? We have been putting

ourselves in the way. Because we had this movement, our laws

recognise that farmers have rights. And the aim of the Supreme Court,

or the suggestion by of one committee, they could be a ban on

GM foods. There is already a ban because two years ago, Monsanto

tried to push an eggplant. Who does it come down to? It has to be

democracy. Democracy means people give direction to government to

regulate companies. That is how democracies are supposed to work.

It is not for the corporation -- corporations. D one people to take

part in direct action? Do you want them to take -- break the law.

learned from grantee. That bad laws must be broken. We follow him to

save patterns are a fraud on earth, biodiversity and future generations.

What do you want people to do? We want people to constantly

reproduced, Exchange and saved seas. Any law anywhere that treats that

as a crime and diversity as a crime, is worthy of disobeying. And those

farmers who have signed agreements sane they were not read use NEC's,

you say break that? The problem is so many farmers will have not

signed the agreement are being criminalised in a Europe because

they are growing diversity. There is a New York, 2010 which I am

calling for the Europeans are not to co-operate with. Is it not too

late for India? It not at all. We are way ahead in the defence of the

freedom of seed, in the defence of biodiversity, and the defence of

freedom for farmers. Do you seriously believe you can get to

the point way you would not have multinational companies who have

patented seats, and you do not have GM foods in India? We do not have