Dr. Vandana Shiva

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Trained in physics and philosophy, Dr. Vandana Shiva is renowned for her activism against GMOs, globalization, and patents on seeds and traditional foods. She co-founded Navdanya, which promotes seed saving and organic farming and has more than 70,000 farmer-members. She is the recipient of the 1993 Alternative Nobel Peace Prize (the Right Livelihood Award) and has authored several bestselling books, most recently Earth Democracy.

In this talk, Shiva will discuss how the future of the planet is intimately linked to the future of food, both because everyone must eat and because industrial agriculture has the largest impact on ecosystems and our health.

In Shiva’s opinion, as society becomes more aware of the true costs of industrial agriculture, including GMOs, there is an attempt by the chemical industry that produces toxics used in agriculture to create a dictatorship over the food system. This growing dictatorship is seen in patents and seed laws that prevent farmers from saving and exchanging seeds as well as consumers from choosing what they eat. The experience of California and Washington in having GMO labeling laws blocked, and Monsanto’s threats to Vermont after it passed a labeling law are indicators of an attempt to establish a food dictatorship. Silencing of scientists whose work shows risks to health and the environment is yet another indicator.

But she feels there is hope, as the threat of dictatorship deepens, so does the the movement for food democracy.

Read more about Dr. Vandana Shiva.

Co-sponsored by the Institute of Humanities Research and supported by the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, as part of the "Humanities for the Environment" project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation/Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes, in partnership with Evil Twin Booking agency.