Be Resilient

By Vandana Shiva
Source: Pop Culture Middle East
October 27, 2015

I met Vandana Shiva in the airport. When the automatic sliding doors at the arrivals gate revealed her luggage cart and her orange sari, I half expected a beam of light to illuminate her, such is the legend that surrounds her. Of course none did because Vandana Shiva is just a human being and not a saint. But what a human being she is.

After studying physics in her undergrad she received her Master’s in philosophy and her Ph.D. in quantum physics. (She also received an honourary doctorate from the University of Guelph). In 1982 she set up the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, where researchers work with local communities and social movements to address important ecological and social issues. In 1991 she established Navdanya, a movement to protect the diversity of living resources, especially seeds, and to advocate for organic farming and fair trade. And like clockwork, a decade or so after that, she founded Bija Vidyapeeth, a sustainable living college. She has taught at universities, written books, and serves on the board of a number of organizations concerned with women, organic farming, and international property rights, among other issues. She is now working with the government of Bhutan to ensure that the country is 100% organic.

So why was she talking to me? Well she wasn’t really. She had flown from New Delhi to Toronto to give a lecture at her old alma mater on The Right to Food – Women, Development, and the Global Economy. I was just lucky enough to have a discussion with her in the car.

I understand that on many farms in India, women are responsible for sowing and harvesting seeds and crops, in the domestic end of food production. Have you seen an increase in women being involved in the public end, in marketing and distributing food?

Oh yes. You know, there are vegetable markets where there are only women. In Bangalore, where I spent three years in, I would walk to the local market every evening and it was all women selling vegetables. And they had grown their own vegetables. And the market in Manipur, only women! And they’re protesting there because they want to tear down the market to create a highway that cuts through northeast India, Burma, and China to move goods. Agriculture and food is women’s economy until its hijacked by corporations. By and large, the only thing that men do in traditional agriculture is plant. Everything else women do. In fact for the UN, for the Food and Agriculture Organization, they wanted me to make a report on women in agriculture. And by the time that I had finished looking at the data, I had to give the title, “Most Farmers in India Are Women.” And most of the work is done by women.