Credit: Manipadma Jena / IPS

By Vandana Shiva
NEW DELHI, Sep 23 2019 (IPS)

The Earth is living, and also creates life. Over 4 billion years the Earth has evolved a rich biodiversity — an abundance of different living organisms and ecosystems — that can meet all our needs and sustain life.

Through biodiversity and the living functions of the biosphere, the Earth regulates temperature and climate, and has created the conditions for our species to evolve. This is what NASA scientist James Lovelock found in working with Lynn Margulis, who was studying the processes by which living organisms produce and remove gases from the atmosphere. The Earth is a self-regulating living organism, and life on Earth creates conditions for life to be maintained and evolve.

The Gaia Hypothesis, born in the 1970s, was a scientific reawakening to the Living Earth. The Earth fossilized some living carbon, and transformed it into dead carbon, storing it underground. That is where we should have left it.

All the coal, petroleum and natural gas we are burning and extracting to run our contemporary oil-based economy was formed over 600 million years. We are burning up millions of years of nature’s work annually. This is why the carbon cycle is broken.

A few centuries of fossil fuel-based civilization have brought our very survival under threat by rupturing the Earth’s carbon cycle, disrupting key climate systems and self-regulatory capacity, and pushing diverse species to extinction at 1000 times the normal rate. The connection between biodiversity and climate change is intimate.

While using 75 percent of the total land that is being used for agriculture, industrial agriculture based on fossil fuel-intensive, chemical-intensive monocultures produce only 30 percent of the food we eat, while small, biodiverse farms using 25 percent of the land provide 70 percent of the food

Extinction is a certainty if we continue a little longer on the fossil fuel path. A shift to a biodiversity-based civilization is now a survival imperative.

Take the example of food and agriculture systems. The Earth has roughly 300,000 edible plant species, but the contemporary global human community eats only 200 of them. And, according to the New Scientist, “half our plant-sourced protein and calories come from just three: maize, rice and wheat.” Meanwhile, only 10 percent of the soy that is grown is used as food for humans. The rest goes to produce biofuels and animal feed.

Our agriculture system is not primarily a food system, it is an industrial system, and it is not sustainable.

The Amazon rainforests are home to 10 percent of the Earth’s biodiversity. Now, the rich forests are being burned for the expansion of GMO soy crops.

The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on land and climate highlights how the climate problem begins with what we do on land.

We have been repeatedly told that monocultures of crops with intensive chemical inputs of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides are necessary for feeding the world.

While using 75 percent of the total land that is being used for agriculture, industrial agriculture based on fossil fuel-intensive, chemical-intensive monocultures produce only 30 percent of the food we eat, while small, biodiverse farms using 25 percent of the land provide 70 percent of the food. Industrial agriculture is responsible for 75 percent of the destruction of soil, water and biodiversity of the planet. At this rate, if the share of fossil fuel-based industrial agriculture and industrial food in our diet is increased to 40 percent, we will have a dead planet. There will be no life, no food, on a dead planet.

Besides the carbon dioxide directly emitted from fossil fuel agriculture, nitrous oxide is emitted from nitrogen fertilizers based on fossil fuels, and methane is emitted from factory farms and food waste.

The manufacture of synthetic fertilizer is highly energy-intensive. One kilogram of nitrogen fertilizer requires the energy equivalent of 2 liters of diesel. Energy used during fertilizer manufacture was equivalent to 191 billion liters of diesel in 2000 and is projected to rise to 277 billion in 2030. This is a major contributor to climate change, yet largely ignored. One kilogram of phosphate fertilizer requires half a liter of diesel.

Nitrous oxide is 300 times more disruptive for the climate than carbon dioxide. Nitrogen fertilizers are destabilizing the climate, creating dead zones in the oceans and desertifying the soils. In the planetary context, the erosion of biodiversity and the transgression of the nitrogen boundary are serious, though often-overlooked, crises.

Thus, regenerating the planet through biodiversity-based ecological processes has become a survival imperative for the human species and all beings. Central to the transition is a shift from fossil fuels and dead carbon, to living processes based on growing and recycling living carbon renewed and grown as biodiversity.

Smallholder farmers in Isiolo, Kenya sorting beans before sending them to the market in Nairobi. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

Organic farming — working with nature — takes excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, where it doesn’t belong, and puts it back in the soil where it belongs, through photosynthesis. It also increases the water-holding capacity of soil, contributing to resilience in times of more frequent droughts, floods and other climate extremes. Organic farming has the potential of sequestering 52 gigatons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the amount needed to be removed from the atmosphere to keep atmospheric carbon below 350 parts per million, and the average temperature increase of 2 degrees centigrade. We can bridge the emissions gap through ecological biodiversity-intensive agriculture, working with nature.

And the more biodiversity and biomass we grow, the more the plants sequester atmospheric carbon and nitrogen, and reduce both emissions and the stocks of pollutants in the air. Carbon is returned to the soil through plants.

The more we grow biodiversity and biomass on forests and farms, the more organic matter is available to return to the soil, thus reversing the trends toward desertification, which is already a major reason for the displacement and uprooting of people and the creation of refugees in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.

Biodiversity-based agriculture is not just a climate solution, it is also a solution to hunger. Approximately 1 billion people are permanently hungry. Biodiversity-intensive, fossil-fuel-free, chemical-free systems produce more nutrition per acre and can feed more people using less land.

To repair the broken carbon cycle, we need to turn to seeds, to the soil and to the sun to increase the living carbon in the plants and in the soil. We need to remember that living carbon gives life, and dead fossil carbon is disrupting living processes. With our care and consciousness we can increase living carbon on the planet, and increase the well-being of all. On the other hand, the more we exploit and use dead carbon, and the more pollution we create, the less we have for the future. Dead carbon must be left underground. This is an ethical obligation and ecological imperative.

This is why the term “decarbonization,” which fails to make a distinction between living and dead carbon, is scientifically and ecologically inappropriate. If we decarbonized the economy, we would have no plants, which are living carbon. We would have no life on earth, which creates and is sustained by living carbon. A decarbonized planet would be a dead planet.

We need to recarbonize the world with biodiversity and living carbon. We need to leave dead carbon in the ground. We need to move from oil to soil. We need to urgently move from a fossil fuel-based system to a biodiversity-based ecological civilization. We can plant the seeds of hope, the seeds of the future.

Dr. Vandana Shiva is a philosopher, environmental activist and eco feminist. She has fought for changes in the practice and paradigms of agriculture and food, and assisted grassroots organizations of the Green movement in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Ireland, Switzerland, and Austria with campaigns against genetic engineering. In 1982, she founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, which led to the creation of Navdanya in 1991, a national movement to protect the diversity and integrity of living resources, especially native seed, the promotion of organic farming and fair trade. She is author of numerous books including,Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis; Stolen Harvest: The hijacking of the Global food supply; Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace; and Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development. Shiva has also served as an adviser to governments in India and abroad as well as NGOs, including the International Forum on Globalization, the Women’s Environment and Development Organization and the Third World Network. She has received numerous awards, including 1993 Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) and the 2010 Sydney Peace Prize.

This story originally appeared in Truthout . It is republished here as part of IPS Inter Press Service’s partnership with Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.

Excerpt:

By Vandana Shiva
NEW DELHI, Jun 8 2011 (IPS)

Land is life. It is the basis of livelihoods for peasants and indigenous people across the Third World and is also becoming the most vital asset in the global economy.

As the resource demands of globalisation increase, land has emerged as a key source of conflict. In India, 65 percent of people are dependent on land.

At the same time a global economy, driven by speculative finance and limitless consumerism, wants the land for mining and for industry, for towns, highways, and biofuel plantations. The speculative economy of global finance is hundreds of times larger than the value of real goods and services produced in the world.

Financial capital is hungry for investments and returns on investments. It must commodify everything on the planet – land and water, plants and genes, microbes and mammals. The commodification of land is fuelling the corporate land grab in India, both through the creation of Special Economic Zones and through foreign direct investment in real estate.

Land, for most people in the world, is Terra Madre, Mother Earth, Bhoomi, Dharti Ma. The land is people’s identity; it is the ground of culture and economy. The bond with the land is a bond with Bhoomi, our Earth; 75 percent of the people in the Third World live on the land and are supported by the land. The Earth is the biggest employer on the planet: 75 percent of the wealth of the people of the global south is in land.

Colonisation was based on the violent takeover of land. And now, globalisation as recolonisation is leading to a massive land grab in India, in Africa, in Latin America. Land is being grabbed for speculative investment, for speculative urban sprawl, for mines and factories, for highways and expressways. Land is being grabbed from farmers after trapping them in debt and pushing them to suicide.

India’s land issues

In India, the land grab is facilitated by the toxic mixture of the colonial Land Acquisition Act of 1894, the deregulation of investments and commerce through neo-liberal policies – and with it the emergence of the rule of uncontrolled greed and exploitation. It is facilitated by the creation of a police state and the use of colonial sedition laws which define defence of the public interest and national interest as anti-national.

The World Bank has worked for many years to commodify land. The 1991 World Bank structural adjustment programme reversed land reform, deregulated mining, roads and ports. While the laws of independent India to keep land in the hands of the tiller were reversed, the 1894 Land Acquisition Act was untouched.

Thus the state could forcibly acquire the land from the peasants and tribal peoples and hand it over to private speculators, real estate corporations, mining companies and industry.

Across the length and breadth of India, from Bhatta in Uttar Pradesh (UP) to Jagatsinghpur in Orissa to Jaitapur in Maharashtra, the government has declared war on our farmers, our annadatas, in order to grab their fertile farmland.

Their instrument is the colonial Land Acquisition Act – used by foreign rulers against Indian citizens. The government is behaving as the foreign rulers did when the Act was first enforced in 1894, appropriating land through violence for the profit of corporations – JayPee Infratech in Uttar Pradesh for the Yamuna expressway, POSCO in Orissa and AREVA in Jaitapur – grabbing land for private profit and not, by any stretch of the imagination, for any public purpose. This is rampant in the country today.

These land wars have serious consequences for our nation’s democracy, our peace and our ecology, our food security and rural livelihoods. The land wars must stop if India is to survive ecologically and democratically.

While the Orissa government prepares to take the land of people in Jagatsinghpur, people who have been involved in a democratic struggle against land acquisition since 2005, Rahul Gandhi makes it known that he stands against forceful land acquisition in a similar case in Bhatta in Uttar Pradesh.

The Minister for the Environment, Mr Jairam Ramesh, admitted that he gave the green signal to pass the POSCO project – reportedly under great pressure. One may ask: “Pressure from whom?” This visible double standard when it comes to the question of land in the country must stop.

Violation of the land

In Bhatta Parsual, Greater Noida (UP), about 6,000 acres of land is being acquired by infrastructure company Jaiprakash Associates to build luxury townships and sports facilities – including a Formula 1 racetrack – in the guise of building the Yamuna Expressway. In total, the land of 1,225 villages is to be acquired for the 165 km Expressway.

The farmers have been protesting this unjust land acquisition, and last week, four people died – while many were injured during a clash between protesters and the police on May 7, 2011. If the government continues its land wars in the heart of India’s bread basket, there will be no chance for peace.

In any case, money cannot compensate for the alienation of land. As 80-year-old Parshuram, who lost his land to the Yamuna Expressway, said: “You will never understand how it feels to become landless.”

While land has been taken from farmers at Rs 300 (six dollars) per square metre by the government – using the Land Acquisition Act – it is sold by developers at Rs 600,000 (13,450 dollars) per square metre – a 200,000 percent increase in price – and hence profits. This land grab and the profits contribute to poverty, dispossession and conflict.

Similarly, on Apr. 18, in Jaitapur, Maharashtra, police opened fire on peaceful protesters demonstrating against the Nuclear Power Park proposed for a village adjacent to the small port town. One person died and at least eight were seriously injured. The Jaitapur nuclear plant will be the biggest in the world and is being built by French company AREVA. After the Fukushima disaster, the protest has intensified – as has the government’s stubbornness.

Today, a similar situation is brewing in Jagatsinghpur, Orissa, where 20 battalions have been deployed to assist in the anti-constitutional land acquisition to protect the stake of India’s largest foreign direct investment – the POSCO Steel project. The government has set the target of destroying 40 betel farms a day to facilitate the land grab. The betel brings the farmers an annual earning of Rs 400,000 (9,000 dollars) an acre.

The Anti-POSCO movement, in its five years of peaceful protest, has faced state violence numerous time and is now gearing up for another – perhaps final – non-violent and democratic resistance against a state using violence to facilitate its undemocratic land grab for corporate profits, overlooking due process and the constitutional rights of the people.

The largest democracy of the world is destroying its democratic fabric through its land wars. While the constitution recognises the rights of the people and the panchayats [village councils] to democratically decide the issues of land and development, the government is disregarding these democratic decisions – as is evident from the POSCO project where three panchayats have refused to give up their land.

The use of violence and destruction of livelihoods that the current trend is reflecting is not only dangerous for the future of Indian democracy, but for the survival of the Indian nation state itself. Considering that today India may claim to be a growing or booming economy but yet is unable feed more than 40 percent of its children is a matter of national shame.

Land is not about building concrete jungles as proof of growth and development; it is the progenitor of food and water, a basic for human survival. It is thus clear: what India needs today is not a land grab policy through an amended colonial land acquisition act but a land conservation policy, which conserves our vital eco-systems, such as the fertile Gangetic plain and coastal regions, for their ecological functions and contribution to food security.

Handing over fertile land to private corporations, who are becoming the new zamindars [heriditary aristocrats], cannot be defined as having a public purpose. Creating multiple privatised super highways and expressways does not qualify as necessary infrastructure. The real infrastructure India needs is the ecological infrastructure for food security and water security. Burying our fertile food-producing soils under concrete and factories is burying the country’s future.

*Dr. Vandana Shiva is a physicist, ecofeminist, philosopher, activist, and author of more than 20 books and 500 papers. She is the founder of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, and has campaigned for biodiversity, conservation and farmers’ rights, winning the Right Livelihood Award [Alternative Nobel Prize] in 1993.

Published under an agreement with Al-Jazeera.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the editorial policy of Al Jazeera or IPS.

Excerpt:

By Vandana Shiva and - -
NEW DELHI, Oct 19 2009 (IPS)

Globalisation and trade liberalisation policies have led to the privatisation of water and biodiversity and the concentration of land ownership in India, reversing six decades of land reform and introducing a new form of corporate zamindari -a feudal land tenure system- through instruments like "special economic zones".

Historically women have been the seed keepers and water keepers in communities. Land, too, was utilised individually but owned collectively. Rulers had rights to a share in the produce of the land, not rights to ownership of the land.

The Land Acquisition Act goes back to 1894 and was passed under British colonial rule. Since independence in 1947 various amendments were made to the act, the latest of them being in 2007. This amendment bars civil courts from entertaining matters related to land acquisition for a ‘public purpose’, and the definition itself has been criticised as superficial and inadequate.

The government has used the right it has claimed for itself under the eminent domain principle to hand over large tracts of fertile farmland to corporations. The conflicts that ensued forced the government to modify the Land Acquisition Act in order to appropriate peasant farmers’ land. Agricultural land furnishes the livelihood for millions of peasants -landless, small, and marginal- but these are being appropriated for transfer to corporate ownership. Village commons were categorised as "wastelands" under the British revenue system because the colonial powers could not collect revenue from them. Today, these commons are being transferred to industry despite the fact they are the most important source of resources and livelihood for the poor.

On May 2007, the provincial government of western Rajasthan state passed "The Rajasthan Land Revenue Rules", which allow 1000-5000 hectares of village common lands to be transferred for 20 years from the village community to the biofuel industry to use for plantations (usually of jatropha) and processing facilities.

Rajasthan’s new Rules for Biofuels have thus brought about two major changes: first, the illegitimate transformation of community rights into private property rights without the consent of the community -in effect, an enclosure of the commons- and second, a stark shift from equity to inequity and from sustainability to non-sustainability as land essential to the rural economy and used to generate fuel, fodder, medicine, and food for the community is rededicated to grow raw material for the fuel for the cars of the urban rich.

In addition to privatising common lands, the jatropha plantations are also privatising water. The Rajasthan Biofuel Law makes it compulsory to use sprinkler irrigation. In a desert state this is a recipe for diverting scarce water resources from drinking water needs and agriculture to jatropha cultivation. It is also a recipe for depleting ground water. In the case of water and biodiversity, corporations seeking privatisation of common resources are using international institutions such as the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to create new kinds of private property.

The expression increasingly used for this type of privatisation is "asset reform". But the life support and livelihood base of the poor is not an "asset" to be bought and sold and traded. Referring to vital life resources as "assets" is in fact the beginning of the commodification and privatisation of the natural resources necessary for survival.

The World Bank’s water sector reform projects are transforming rights to water; through its loans, is redefining India’s water acts and rewriting water policies and laws. This amounts to an outsourcing of legislation that undermines the Indian constitution and Indian democracy, robbing the people of water rights and water laws that were democratically established and articulated by the panchayati raj (village council), state legislatures, and national parliament.

Urban water privatisation projects also directly impact farmers’ right to water. Five farmers of Tonk district in Rajasthan were killed by police when they protested the diversion of their river Banas to Ajmer and Jaipur as part of a privatisation project. The farmers had been left with no irrigation water and even their wells went dry because of the blocking of the flow of the river. Then the contract awarded to Suez-Degremont to build the Sonia Vihar Plant involving the diversion of Ganges water to Delhi has deprived farmers of irrigation water.

The result is clear: when natural resources which should be held in common are privatised, common people are deprived of their sources of sustenance, their means of making a living, and their collective wealth. The consequences are dire.

The future of farming and women farmers rests on the shared care for the vital resources of the earth -the soil, the biodiversity the water- that make agriculture possible. And women, who are the majority of the farmers in a country like India, have the expertise to manage this vital natural capital based on social equity and ecological sustainability. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Vandana Shiva is an author and international campaigner for women and the environment.

Excerpt:

By Vandana Shiva and - -
NEW DELHI, Aug 25 2009 (IPS)

The privatisation of the earth’s resources is a recipe for famine and desertification, violence against women, hunger, and, as happens in India, the suicide of farmers.

The state of natural resources is shaped and influenced by agricultural technologies and by how natural resources are owned.

Until recently water and biodiversity have been commons in India, overseen largely by women. This is the system that privatisation is threatening.

Caring for the soil over generations is part of a culture of holding the land in trust and recognising the earth as a mother that nourishes humanity. Good farming builds the soil. It builds humus, which is the heart of soil fertility. When land is transformed into a commodity, soil disappears -in the imagination and in reality.

An advertisement of Dubai-based construction and real estate company EMAAR-MDG on “Making a New India” read, “Where there is land, there will be houses, malls, golf clubs.” What is forgotten is that where there is land there is soil, there are crops, there are villages, and there are farmers, especially women farmers, as most farmers in India are women.

Just as soil gives way to concrete, so villages give way to concrete jungles, communities give way to corporations and consumers, and women as producers give way to women as the disposable sex.

The commodification of land goes hand in hand with the chemicalisation of agriculture. India spends about two billion dollars annually on fertiliser subsidies.

Living soil is being replaced with external inputs like synthetic fertilisers, which kill soil organisms and over time destroy the processes by which soil fertility is built.

Women are experts in internal input agriculture, an approach that works with the products of the land to create soil fertility. No external inputs are needed. Organic matter is recycled into compost, and leguminous crops fix nitrogen in the soil.

The other external input in agriculture is purchased seed. As seed becomes corporate property, corporations create non-renewable seeds so that farmers are forced to buy seed every year. The debt incurred by buying this and other external inputs -chemical pesticides and fertiliser- is a major reason for the epidemic of farmer suicides, which in turn leave behind indebted, landless widows. Agrochemicals pollute the land and our bodies, while corporate, non-renewable seeds destroy biodiversity and farmers’ freedom.

Common access to seed is being destroyed by laws that make it illegal for farmers to manage seeds as a commons and grant the state the power to approve and license varieties and force farmers to seek state approval through “compulsory” registration laws. The pretext is quality control, but the real result is the destruction of high-quality, reliable, open-pollinated varieties bred and developed by farmers. The criteria used for licensing and for the costs of licensing deny farmers their right to their own traditional seeds, forcing them into dependency on corporate supply each year.

The government of India tried to introduce such a law in the form of the Seed Act, 2004. However, we carried out a large scale “Bija (Seed) Satyagraha” -an act of non-violent non- cooperation- declaring that saving and sharing seeds was a duty, not a crime and that we would continue to save and share our seeds and biodiversity.

Although the links between the growing problem of farmer suicides and their growing dependence on costly purchased external inputs are clear, the Indian government’s only response has been to offer more consumer credit to purchase more external inputs.

Farmers need to be liberated from this bondage. Agriculture needs biodiversity, soil and water, not genetically-altered organisms, pesticides, and chemical fertilisers.

For every input corporations want to sell there is an internal input provided by women farmers and the land. Moreover, the evidence now clearly demonstrates that low external input ecological agriculture costs less and produces more. And it keeps food security in women’s hands.

The only reason corporations push external inputs is profit. As farmers get into debt and lose their land, land too becomes a corporate monopoly. Thus non-sustainability and corporate monopoly are mutually reinforcing -just as sustainability and the commons are.

In the case of biodiversity, the enclosure of the biological commons is taking place through patents. Patents on life are at the heart of Art. 27.3 (b) of the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement of the World Trade Organisation. One problem associated with patents on life is biopiracy, the pirating and patenting of indigenous knowledge and biodiversity, for example, patents on neem, basmati, wheat, and haldi. Since a patent is an exclusive right to use, produce, sell the patented product or process, patents on biodiversity and seeds in effect prevent the use of and access to seeds as a commons.

A permanent agriculture can only be based on the permanence of rights -the rights of the farmers, and the people, not private corporations. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Vandana Shiva is an author and international campaigner for women and the environment.

Excerpt:

By Vandana Shiva and - -
NEW DELHI, Feb 5 2008 (IPS)

False solutions to the climate crisis, like biofuels, will actually aggravate the problem while exacerbating inequality, hunger, and poverty, writes Vandana Shiva, author and international campaigner for women and the environment. In this article Shiva writes that biofuels contribute to the very global warming that they are supposed to reduce. And yet these biofuels are treated as a clean development mechanism for reducing emissions in the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol totally avoided the material challenge of stopping activities that lead to higher emissions and the political challenge of regulating the polluters and making them pay in accordance with principles adopted at the Rio Earth Summit. Instead, Kyoto introduced a system of emissions trading which in effect rewards the polluters by assigning them rights to degrade the atmosphere and allowing trading in these rights. Today, the emissions trading market has reached USD 30 billion and is expected to reach USD 1 trillion. Meanwhile carbon dioxide emissions continue to increase, as do profits from polluting industrial activities.

Mitigation requires material changes in production and consumption patterns. Globalisation has driven up production and consumption worldwide which has significantly increased carbon dioxide emissions. World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules for trade liberalisation force countries onto a high emissions pathway. Similarly, World Bank lending for super highways, thermal power plants, industrial agriculture, and corporate retail coerces countries to emit more greenhouse gases.

Giant corporations like Cargill and Walmart are also responsible. Cargill is an important player in spreading soya cultivation in the Amazon and palm oil plantations in the rainforests of Indonesia, which increase CO2 emissions both by burning forests to clear land and by destroying the massive carbon sink the rainforests and peat lands provide. And Walmart’s model of long-distance centralised trade is a recipe for increasing the carbon dioxide burden in the atmosphere.

The first step in mitigation requires a focus on the real actions that have led to the current crisis and the real actors. Real actions include moving away from ecological farming and local food systems. Real actors include global agribusiness, the WTO, and the World Bank. Real actions involve the destruction of rural economies with low emission and their replacement with urban sprawl designed and planned by builders and construction companies. Real actions involve the destruction of sustainable transport systems that are based on renewable energy and public transport and the adoption of private automobiles instead. The real actors pushing this transition to non-sustainability in mobility are the oil companies and automobile corporations.

The Kyoto Protocol totally avoided the material challenge of stopping activities that lead to higher emissions and the political challenge of regulating the polluters and making them pay in accordance with principles adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. Instead, Kyoto introduced a system of emissions trading which in effect rewards the polluters by assigning them rights to degrade the atmosphere and allowing trading in these rights.

Today, the emissions trading market has reached USD 30 billion and is expected to reach USD 1 trillion. Meanwhile carbon dioxide emissions continue to increase, as do profits from polluting industrial activities.

Another false solution to climate change is the promotion of biofuels made from corn, soya, palm oil, and jatropha. Biofuels — fuels derived from biomass — continue to be the most important energy source for the poor in the world: energy for cooking the food comes from inedible biomass like dried cow dung, stalks of millet and pulses, and agro-forestry species on village wood lots.

Industrial biofuels, however, are not the fuels of the poor but rather the foods of the poor, transformed into heat, electricity, and transport. Liquid biofuels, in particular ethanol and bio-diesel, constitute one of the fastest growing sectors of production, driven by the search for alternatives to fossil fuels both to avoid the catastrophe of peak oil and to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

On December 19, President Bush signed legislation to require the replacement of 36 billion gallons of gasoline with biofuels by 2022.

Inevitably the resulting massive increase in the demand for grains is going to come at the expense of the satisfaction of human needs, with poor people priced out of the food market.

Industrial biofuels are being promoted as a source of renewable energy and as a means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and yet converting crops like soya, corn and palm oil into liquid fuels can actually aggravate climate chaos and the CO2 burden:

First, the deforestation caused by expanding soya plantations and palm oil plantations is leading to increased CO2 emissions. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that 25-30 percent of the greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere each year -1.6 billion tonnes- comes from deforestation. For instance, by 2022, biofuel plantations could destroy 98 percent of Indonesia’s rainforests.

According to Wetlands International, the destruction of South East Asia’s peat lands to create palm oil plantations is contributing 8 percent of global CO2 emissions. According to Delft Hydraulics, every tonne of palm oil results in 30 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions — 10 times as much as petroleum production. And yet these biofuels are treated as a clean development mechanism for reducing emissions in the Kyoto Protocol. The truth is that biofuels contribute to the very global warming that they are supposed to reduce. (World Rainforest Bulletin No.112, November 2006)

Worse yet, the conversion process of biomass to liquid fuel uses more fossil fuel than it substitutes.

The US will use 20 percent of its corn to produce 5 billion gallons of ethanol, which will replace only 1 percent of its oil use. If 100 percent of corn was used, only 5 percent of the total oil would be substituted. This is clearly not a solution either to peak oil or climate chaos.

The false solutions examined above will not mitigate but actually aggravate the climate crisis, while also deepening and spreading inequality, hunger, and poverty. (END/COPYRIGHT)

Excerpt:

By Vandana Shiva and - -
NEW DELHI, Dec 4 2007 (IPS)

The pollution created by corporations must be recognised as their responsibility and liability, no matter where they create it. Transferring their pollution burden to the poor of the South is not equity, it is injustice, writes Vandana Shiva, author and international campaigner for women and the environment. In this analysis, Shiva writes that in times of globalisation, global corporations are the main economic players, not countries, and global corporations out-source their pollution to the developing world to save costs and maximise profits. The author coins the term \’\’equity schizophrenia\’\’, by which corporate globalisers destroy equity to concentrate wealth and resources in the hands of a wealthy few, while they want the poor, whom they have dispossessed of their livelihoods and land, to share the responsibility for pollution, which the poor did not cause. This is hypercapitalism of wealth and resources and socialism of pollution. The poor lose their \’\’goods\’\’ to the rich and inherit their liabilities.

In India, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, vice chairman of the Planning Commission, was asked to release the report and did so but rejected its recommendations. Ahluwalia, a market fundamentalist who throws equity to the winds while forging his neoliberal policies for India, rejected the UNDP report in the name of equity: “Any reduction strategy based solely on total global emissions, and not differentiating on the basis of per capital emissions by countries, is fundamentally flawed and goes against the tenets of equality.”

It would be helpful for citizens of India, especially the poor and the marginal, if the head of the planning commission did his planning on the basis of equity rather than corporate profits: if he supported equal per capita access to water instead of water privatisation; if he supported equal access to livelihoods in retail for hawkers and shop keepers instead of promoting corporate retail; if he protected India’s small farmers instead of promoting the corporatisation of our agriculture, or defended the equal per capital access to food instead of allowing two-thirds of Indian children to slip into malnutrition by promoting commodification and speculative trade in food.

This is ”equity schizophrenia”, by which corporate globalisers destroy equity to concentrate wealth and resources in the hands of a wealthy few, while they want the poor, whom they have dispossessed of their livelihoods and land, to share the responsibility for pollution they did not cause. This is hypercapitalism of wealth and resources and socialism of pollution. The poor lose their ”goods” to the rich and inherit their liabilities.

It would be wrong to tally the emissions from the burning of Borneo’s forests as the equal contribution of all Indonesians, including the peasants and indigenous communities who are being burned out to make room for palm oil plantations. The Greenpeace Report ”How the Palm Oil Industry is Cooking the Climate” has identified the polluters, their share of pollution, and the steps they need to take to stop the pollution of the atmosphere that is leading to climate change. Cargill is the backseat driver for palm oil growth on all fronts. Proctor and Gamble, Kraft and Nestle, and Unilever promote deforestation by using palm oil in their products. The major suppliers to the trade are Sinar Mas, with 1.65 million hectares of palm oil plantations and exports of 400,000 tonnes of palm oil, and ADM-Kuok-Wilmar, with 493,000 hectares of plantations and 1 million tonnes of exports.

The ordinary Indonesian is not responsible for the forest and peat fires that are contributing 11 percent of the country’s emissions: giant corporations are. When the source of pollution is known, equity demands that the polluter pay. Equity does not translate into transferring pollution responsibility to non-polluters.

Greenpeace has suggested three steps which could reduce emissions by 3.8 gigatonnes of Co2 per year, or nearly 8 percent of current annual greenhouse gas emissions: first, cut global deforestation; second, stop Indonesian peat land fires and establish a moratorium on peatland conversion; and third, rehabilitate Indonesia’s degraded peatlands.

Today global corporations are the main economic players, not countries. And global corporation outsource their pollution to the developing world to reduce costs and maximise profits. Equity demands that the pollution created by corporations be recognised as their responsibility and liability, no matter where they create it. Transferring their pollution burden to the poor of the South is not equity, it is injustice.

We need to revisit the concept of equity and restore integrity to it. Equity with integrity implies both honesty and coherence. First, equity should govern economic policies and actions and not become an excuse for creators of economic inequality to avoid their clear social, economic, and ecological responsibilities. Second, equity at the global level should be derived from equity at local and national levels. Those who are dispossessing the poor at home and polarising society have no moral right to invoke ”equity” on global platforms to continue to prey on the poor and the planet. What protects the poor, protects the planet. What hurts the poor, hurts the planet. The laws of equity and the laws of ecology have a coherence. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Vandana Shiva and - -
NEW DELHI, May 29 2007 (IPS)

Fifteen years ago at the Earth Summit in Rio the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on Climate Change were signed. While they have evolved totally independently, they are intimately connected, writes Vandana Shiva, author and international campaigner for women and the environment. In this article, Shiva writes that while reducing climate impact, biodiversity also increases climate adaptation. Decentralised biodiverse systems are more resilient to climate change than centralized monoculture systems. Biodiversity provides an important adaptation strategy for climate chaos, and yet it is not even included in the discussion on climate change, which is focussed on pseudo-solutions such as industrial biofuels and carbon trading. We need to put biodiversity at the centre of climate solutions. Biodiversity conservation protects the diverse species that maintain the web of life on the planet. Biodiversity conservation removes poverty. And biodiversity conservation reduces the risks of climate change. These ecological and economic reasons should propel us to commit ourselves to the protection of biodiversity everywhere.

Biodiversity and climate are connected in the generation of environmental problems and the search for environmental solutions. The destruction of local, sustainable, biodiversity-based economies is at the heart of climate chaos. As local biodiversity economies are replaced by global fossil fuel economies, greenhouse gas emissions increase, which accelerates and aggravates man-made climate change.

Biodiversity economies are multifunctional. Biodiversity provides food, fodder, fuel, fibre, and medicine. Biodiversity creates culture. Cultural diversity and biodiversity in fact go hand in hand. Biodiversity is the real capital of indigenous, tribal communities. It is the real capital of peasant societies. Biodiversity economies provide all basic needs – from the brooms that clean our homes to the medicines that save our lives and the seeds that give us food.

Conserving biodiversity is therefore central to an anti-poverty agenda. Poverty is the denial of basic needs, and basic needs are provided by biodiversity. Therefore protecting and rejuvenating biodiversity reduces poverty, if wealth and poverty are measured in real terms, not the fictitious constructions of growth and GDP.

Besides being the basis of real wealth, biodiversity is also a source of productivity. Biodiverse organic farms produce two times more output and income for farmers than chemical monocultures. Biodiversity rejuvenates soil fertility, eliminating chemical fertilizers. Biodiversity controls pests, thus eliminating chemical pesticides as well. The removal of chemical fertilizers from agriculture removes one of the most noxious greenhouse gases, thus reducing the impact on the climate.

Navdanya is an organic farm cooperative actively involved in the rejuvenation of indigenous knowledge and culture, in creating awareness of the hazards of genetic engineering, defending people’s knowledge from biopiracy, and protecting food rights and water rights in the face of globalisation. Our research in Navdanya has shown that biodiverse organic farms increase carbon absorption by more than 50 percent and soil moisture conservation by 10 – 20 percent. Biodiverse organic farming does mitigate climate change. By conserving biodiversity we can literally have our cake and eat it too. We can have more and better food produced at lower cost with less energy inputs.

While reducing climate impact, biodiversity also increases climate adaptation. Decentralised biodiverse systems are more resilient to climate change than centralized monoculture systems. Diverse varieties of salt-resistant seeds are needed for resisting cyclones and hurricanes. Drought-resistant seeds are needed for drought. Flood-resistant seeds are needed for dealing with floods. And these seeds need to be in farmers hands. That is why we in Navdanya have started to create seed banks for climate change.

Biodiversity thus provides an important adaptation strategy for climate chaos, and yet it is not even included in the discussion on climate change, which is focussed on pseudo-solutions such as industrial biofuels and carbon trading.

Industrial biofuels are destroying biodiversity while contributing to climate chaos. In India, jatropha plantations are appropriating village commons from local communities, leaving them poorer and more ecologically vulnerable. In Indonesia, indigenous people are being uprooted to expand palm oil plantations for biofuels. In North America, the use of corn for biofuels in the US has doubled the price of corn in Mexico. This is a climate disaster, a biodiversity disaster, and a social disaster.

We need to put biodiversity at the centre of climate solutions. Biodiversity conservation protects the diverse species that maintain the web of life on the planet. Biodiversity conservation removes poverty. And biodiversity conservation reduces the risks of climate change. These ecological and economic reasons should propel us to commit ourselves to the protection of biodiversity, wherever we are, whatever we do. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Vandana Shiva and - -
NEW DELHI, Sep 1 2006 (IPS)

Fifty years ago no culture in the world ate soya. Today it is in 60 percent of all processed foods, writes Vandana Shiva, author and international campaigner for women and the environment who received the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1993. In this analysis, Shiva writes that the promotion of soya in food is a huge experiment promoted with USD 13 billion of subsidies from the US government between 1998 and 2004, and USD 80 million a year from the American Soya Industry. Agro-giants Cargill and ADM are now destroying the Amazon to grow this crop. This is in turn destroying the planet\’s climate. In depending on monocultures, the food system is being made increasingly dependent on fossil fuels — for synthetic fertilisers, running the giant machinery, and long-distance transport. Monocultures lead to malnutrition for the underfed and overfed alike. One billion people are without food because industrial monocultures robbed them of their livelihoods in agriculture and their food entitlements. Another 1.7 billion are suffering from obesity and food-related diseases.

Fifty years ago no culture in the world ate soya. Then in the US the soya industry started to put it in 70 percent of industrial foods. Today it is in 60 percent of all processed foods.

The promotion of soya in food is a huge experiment promoted with USD 13 billion of subsidies from the US government between 1998 and 2004, and USD 80 million a year from the American Soya Industry.

As a result of this experiment, nature, culture, and people’s health are all being destroyed.

Humanity has eaten more than 80,000 edible plants through its evolution, more than 3,000 consistently. Yet we now rely on just eight crops to provide 75 percent of the world’s food.

In 1998, India’s indigenous edible oil, made from mustard, coconut, sesame, linseed, groundnut processed in artisanal cold press mills, were banned using “food safety” as an excuse. Simultaneously, restrictions on soya oil imports were removed, threatening 10 million farmers’ livelihoods. One million oil mills were closed. More than twenty farmers were killed while protesting against the dumping of soya on the Indian market, which drove down prices of domestic oil seed crops. And millions of tons of artificially- cheap GMO soya oil continue to be dumped on India.

Women from the slums of Delhi formed a movement to dump soya and bring back mustard oil: “Sarson bachao, soyabean bhagao” (save the mustard, drive away the soyabean). We did succeed in bringing back mustard through our “sarson satyagraha” (non-cooperation with the ban on mustard oil).

The same companies that dumped soya on India — Cargill and ADM — are destroying the Amazon to grow this crop. Millions of acres of Amazonian rainforest are being burned to clear land to grow soya for export. Cargill has built an illegal port at Santarem in Para and is driving the expansion of soya in the Amazon rainforest. Armed gangs take over the forest and use slaves to farm. People who oppose the destruction of the forests and the violence against people, like Sister Dorothy Stang, a US-born, naturalised Brazilian nun, are assassinated.

While people in Brazil and India are being threatened to promote a monoculture that benefits agribusiness, people in the US and Europe are threatened indirectly by the fact that 80 percent of soya goes to cattle feed to make cheap meat, which is destroying both the Amazon rainforest as well as people’s health in rich countries. Soya has high levels of isoflavones and phyto-oestrogens, which produce hormone imbalances in humans.

Monocultures lead to malnutrition for the underfed and overfed alike. One billion people are without food because industrial monocultures robbed them of their livelihoods in agriculture and their food entitlements. Another 1.7 billion are suffering from obesity and food-related diseases.

In depending on monocultures, the food system is being made increasingly dependent on fossil fuels, for the synthetic fertilisers, running the giant machinery, and long-distance transport.

Moving beyond monocultures has become an imperative for repairing the food system. Small biodiverse farms have higher productivity and generate higher incomes for farmers. And biodiverse diets provide more nutrition and better taste.

Local food cultures have rich and diverse alternatives to soya. For protein we have thousands of varieties of beans and grain legumes.

Bringing back biodiversity to our farms goes hand in hand with bringing back small farmers to the land. Corporate control thrives on monocultures. Citizens’ food freedom depends on biodiversity. Human freedom and the freedom of other species are mutually reinforcing, not mutually exclusive.

In our times soya has become a symbol of an economy and world view that destroys nature and indigenous cultures. It symbolises an alienation from nature and our bodies. It symbolises greed and control. Through soya, global corporations like Monsanto, Cargill and ADM seize control over land and biodiversity. Monsanto has broad species patents on GM soya.

We are not just losing the Amazon, which could disappear by 2080 if current rates of deforestation continue, according to Dr. Philip Fearnside. We are destroying the planet’s climate. The Amazon is the earth’s lungs and heart. It is a carbon sink and a pump that creates the climate by adding moisture to the trade winds. As the forest shrinks, moisture reduces, and drought intensifies. In the 2005 drought, Amazon River levels, which normally fall 30-40 feet, fell 51 feet. At one point in Acre, the mighty Amazon could be crossed on foot.

By eating up the Amazon to grow cheap meat and cheap soya, agri- business corporations like Cargill are in fact eating up the planet. In the colonisation of the Amazon by corporations through soya we witness the ultimate unfolding of the Cartesian / Baconian paradigm of separation from nature. If we are to avoid total ecological and human catastrophe, we have to give up the primitive accumulation model of the economy which destroys and consumes everything to create “growth”. And only indigenous cultures can teach us how to live differently so that diverse species and diverse cultures can flourish on earth. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Vandana Shiva and - -
NEW DELHI, Jun 1 2006 (IPS)

Oil wars, water wars, land wars, atmospheric wars : this is the real face of economic globalisation, whose appetite for resources is exceeding the limits of sustainability and justice, writes Vandana Shiva, an author and international campaigner for women and the environment. Like oil, water is becoming a source of wars as it is commodified and privatised, dammed and transferred long distances. Every river in India has become a site of major, irresolvable conflicts over water ownership and distribution. The waters of the Tigris and Euphrates, which have sustained agriculture for thousands of years in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, have been the cause of several major clashes among the three countries. Trade liberalisation is allowing corporations to encroach on the ecological space of local communities, thus unleashing conflicts. The problem is not a shortage of natural resources but free trade and globalisation, corporate greed and partnerships between corporations and states to usurp people\’s resources and violate their fundamental rights. If globalisation is pushed relentlessly, these resource wars will grow and globalisation will be slowed to a halt by ecological catastrophes and conflicts over resources — or, the movements for ecological sustainability and social justice will succeed in resisting globalisation\’s ecological overreaching by laying the foundations for an Earth Democracy in which we live lightly on the earth, and share her vital resources equitably.

Oil wars, water wars, land wars, atmospheric wars: this is the real face of economic globalisation, whose appetite for resources is exceeding the limits of sustainability and justice.

Where there is oil, there is conflict. No matter how much the veneer of a culture war is grafted onto the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq (and the threat of an invasion of Iran), the real issue was and is the control of oil. The May 22, 2006, cover story of Time Magazine was ”The Deadly Delta” on the conflicts that oil has triggered in the Niger delta. The May 15, 2006, Newsweek featured articles on oil politics as the ”Black Art”. Oil has become the basis for the strategy of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia to chart a post-globalisation, post-imperialist map of the world.

Like oil, water is becoming a source of wars as it is commodified and privatised, dammed and transferred long distances. Large dams divert water from the natural drainage systems of rivers. Altering a river’s flow also modifies water distribution, especially if interbasin transfers are involved. A change in water allocation most often generates interstate disputes, which rapidly escalate into conflicts between central governments and states.

Every river in India has become a site of major, irresolvable conflicts over water ownership and distribution. Even the kidnapping of the popular Indian film star Rajkumar by the forest bandit Veerappan in 2000 was related to a water conflict, between the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over water from the Kaveri River. In the Americas, conflict between the United States and Mexico over Colorado River water has intensified in recent years.

The waters of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, which have sustained agriculture for thousands of years in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, have been the cause of several major clashes among the three countries. Both rivers originate in Turkey, whose official position is: ”The water is as much ours as Iraq’s oil is Iraq’s.”

The war between Israelis and Palestinians is to a some extent a war over water. The river under contention is the Jordan River, used by Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and the West Bank. Israel’s extensive industrial agriculture requires river water as well as the groundwater of the West Bank. Though only 3 percent of the Jordan basin lies in Israel, it provides for 60 percent of its water needs. The 1967 war was in effect on occupation of the freshwater resources from the Golan Heights, the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River, and the West Bank. As Middle-Eastern scholar Ewan Anderson, notes, ”The West Bank has become a critical source of water for Israel, and it could be argued that this consideration outweighs other political and strategic factors.”

World Bank/Asian Development Bank (ADB) financing is also unleashing water wars between states and citizens. For example, when a dam was constructed on Banas River in Rajasthan to divert water to the cities of Jaipur and Ajmer, five villagers at a peaceful protest demanding release of water for local use were shot dead by the police, on 26 August, 2005. The giant USD200 billion River-Linking Project will dam and divert every river in India and is sure to create millions of water wars.

Instead of recognising that globalisation’s ecological footprint is crushing land and people, the new culturally and intellectually uprooted elite talk of too many people on the land. They even talk of natural resources as a comparative disadvantage. A recent article by the secretary finance of the government of Kerala was titled, ”When Natural Resources Are A Menace For Nations: Comparative Disadvantage” (Alok Sheel, Financial Express, April 12, 2006). The article states, ”The view that natural resources can contribute to the comparative disadvantage of nations is relatively recent. If the state is unable to maintain public order, economic activities either collapse or migrate. Natural resources, however, cannot migrate and are easy prey for militant groups.”

The author goes on to argue, ”Natural resources have no economic value at source. Therefore, what gives these resources economic value are the ever increasing avenues of plugging into global trade facilitated by lowering of trade barriers.”

However, it is precisely this trade liberalisation that is allowing corporations to encroach on the ecological space of local communities, thus unleashing conflicts. For local people, natural resources like land and water definitely have value. Denying value at source is denying the prior rights and prior uses of land and water. This is how neoliberal economies create an ecological and social blind spot and can redefine natural resources, the very basis of life, as a ”menace” and ”comparative disadvantage”. The problem is not natural resources but free trade and globalisation. The problem is not people but corporate greed and partnerships between corporations and states to usurp people’s resources and violate their fundamental rights.

If globalisation is pushed relentlessly, these resource wars will grow and globalisation will be slowed to a halt by ecological catastrophes and conflicts over resources — or, the movements for ecological sustainability and social justice will succeed in resisting globalisation’s ecological overreaching by laying the foundations for an Earth Democracy, in which we live lightly on the earth and share her vital resources equitably. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Vandana Shiva and - -
NEW DELHI, Jun 1 2005 (IPS)

As water scarcity becomes an increasingly urgent issue around the world, a recent ruling by an Indian high court provides a troubling perspective on how water rights can play out in contests between foreign corporations and local governments, writes Vandana Shiva In this article, Shiva writes that in 2000, Coca-Cola set up a plant in Kerala, India. Within a year the groundwater started to decline, and wells were polluted. After protests, the local government denied renewal of the plant\’s license and the Kerala High Court supported its action. On April 7, 2005, however, this decision was overruled by two other judges of the same court who placed Coca-Cola\’s right to use water over the local government\’s right to regulate water use. The issue is whether public regulation will be democratic and in the hands of local communities or whether they will be controlled through a state bureaucracy which can be corrupted and influenced by the power of corporations. The local government has taken an appeal to the Supreme Court. But the real judgment in this case will come from the people. Coca-Cola has unleashed a war against the earth, and the people of areas where Coca-Cola is mining water are committed to stopping the theft of their water and the hijack of their institutions.

As water scarcity becomes an increasingly urgent issue around the world, a recent ruling by an Indian high court provides a troubling perspective on how water rights can play out in contests between foreign corporations and local governments.

In 2000, Coca-Cola set up a plant at Plachimada in Palghat district of Kerala. Within a year the groundwater started to decline, and wells were polluted.

Mylamma, an Adivasi woman, organised protests with local community which forced the locally-elected government, the Perumatty Panchayat, to not renew the license. On 7 April 2003, the Panchayat passed a resolution reading:

”As the excessive exploitation of groundwater by the Coca-Cola Company in Plachimada is causing acute drinking water scarcity in Perumatty Panchayat and nearby places, it is resolved in public interest not to renew the licence of the said company.”

The issue went to the Kerala High Court. Two issues were at stake: democracy and the rights of the Panchayat and the local community; and excessive exploitation of water by Coca-Cola.

According to the Panchayat, it is the ultimate authority to decide on the matters related to water resources. The protection and preservation of water resources are the exclusive domain of the Panchayat. When the Panchayat takes a decision based on relevant materials, the government cannot interfere with. These rights are guaranteed under the constitution.

In a judgment given on December 16, 2003, a division bench of the Kerala High Court, Justice Balakrishna Nair ruled that Coca- Cola did not have unfettered rights to withdraw water. The judge ruled that ”the extraction of groundwater, even at the admitted amounts of the 2nd respondent is illegal. It has no legal right to extract this much of natural wealth.”

The plant was shut down. However, on April 7, 2005, Justice K. Ramachandran and Justice Balachandran of the Kerala High Court, overruled the order. While Justice Nair had upheld the public trust doctrine, Justices Ramachandran and Balachandran are trying, through their order, to define private property rights in groundwater and Coca-Cola’s unfettered right to withdraw water.

Justice Nair had written: ‘The public trust doctrine primarily rests on the principle that certain services like air, sea water and forests have such a great importance to the people as a whole that it would be wholly unjustified to make them a subject of private ownership.”… ”The state has got a duty to protect groundwater against excessive exploitation and the inaction of the State in this regard will tantamount to infringement of the right to life of the people of India guaranteed under the Constitution of India.’

The order of Justices Ramachandran and Balachandran tried to overturn the Public Trust Doctrine of the earlier judgment:

”We have to assume that a person has the right to extract water from his property… The Panchayat had no ownership about such private water source in effect denying the proprietary rights of the occupier, and the proposition of law laid down by the learned judge is too wide, for unqualified acceptance.”

The court therefore placed the water rights of Coca-Cola above those of the local community.

They also ruled that, ”a person owns the groundwater under their land and has a right to draw water without waiting for permission from the Panchayat and the Government… The observation that the groundwater under the land of the respondent does not belong to it may not be a correct proposition in law.”

However, across the country, as water tables decline, the government is intervening in the matter of water rights. Farmers across large parts of India need permission to install tube wells. The regulation of groundwater extraction is therefore an established practise, and by denying its existence to carve out unfettered private rights for Coca-Cola, Justices Balachandran and Ramachandran are going against the Constitution, the Panchayati Raj Act, the Public Trust Doctrine, and groundwater regulation Acts.

Public regulation for sustainable and equitable use of water is established in practise and in law. The issue is whether public regulation will be democratic and in the hands of local communities according to the Panchayati Raj Act and the principles of Jal Swaraj (water sovereignty) or whether they will be controlled through a state bureaucracy which can be corrupted and influenced by the power of corporations.

The so-called expert committee report on which the judges based their report is biased and flawed. It is biased because the committee had a representative of Coca-Cola on it. It is flawed because (a) it is based on false assumptions, not empirical investigation of utilisation, (b) it is based on a false presentation of the hydrological cycle and recharge of groundwater aquifers.

The judgment of April 7, 2005, goes against the laws of democracy and the laws of hydrology. Recently, the Panchayat has taken an appeal to the Supreme Court. But the real judgment in this case will come from the people. Coca-Cola has unleashed a war against the earth and earth communities. And the people of Plachimada, and people of Kaladera, Mehendiganj and the other plants where Coca-Cola is mining water are committed to stopping the theft of their water and hijack of their institutions. The struggle to establish earth Democracy will continue. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Vandana Shiva and - -
NEW DELHI, Mar 1 2004 (IPS)

India is being swept by an epidemic of biopiracy — the patenting of indigenous biodiversity and traditional knowledge by global corporations, writes Vandana Shiva, author and international campaigner for women and the environment who received the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1993. First it was the neem plant, then basmati rice. Now our wheat has been patented, Shiva writes in this article for IPS. Biopiracy is both legally and morally wrong. By allowing indigenous innovations to be treated as \’\’inventions\’\’ of the patent \’\’owner\’\’, biopiracy patents amount to the outright theft of India\’s scientific, intellectual, and creative achievements and must be challenged. The economic consequences are serious. In the short run, a biopiracy patent robs us of markets overseas for our unique products. In the long run, if these trends are not challenged and intellectual property rights systems changed to prevent biopiracy, we will end up paying royalties for what belongs to us and is necessary for everyday survival.

India is being swept by an epidemic of biopiracy — the patenting of indigenous biodiversity and traditional knowledge by global corporations. First it was the neem plant, then basmati rice. Now our wheat, our ”atta” (whole wheat flour), our ”chapatis” (flat unleavened bread) have been patented.

Conagra, the US agribusiness, was granted Patent No. 6,098,905 for ”atta” in August 2000. In 1996, Unilever/Monsanto were granted a patent (EP 518577) for claims to have ”invented” the use of flour to make traditional kinds of Indian bread such as chapatis. On May 21, 2003, the European Patent Office in Munich granted a patent with the number EP 445 929 and the simple title ”plants”.

The patent holder is Monsanto, better known as the world’s largest trader in genetically-engineered plants. The patent covers wheat exhibiting a special baking quality of low elasticity. Wheat with these characteristics was originally developed in India; now Monsanto holds a monopoly on farming, breeding, and processing it.

Biopiracy is both legally and morally wrong. By allowing indigenous innovations to be treated as ”inventions” of the patent ”owner”, biopiracy patents amount to the outright theft of India’s scientific, intellectual, and creative achievements and must be challenged.

The economic consequences are serious. In the short run, a biopiracy patent robs us of markets overseas for our unique products. In the long run, if these trends are not challenged and intellectual property rights (IPR) systems changed to prevent biopiracy, we will end up paying royalties for what belongs to us and is necessary for everyday survival.

If there were only one or two cases of such false claims, it could be attributed to mere error. But this is not the case. The problem is deep and systemic and calls for deep, systemic change — not case-by-case challenges.

Far from an aberration in US patent law, the promotion of piracy is intrinsic to it. IPR regimes in the context of trade liberalisation become instruments of piracy at three levels:

1. Resource piracy in which the biological and natural resources of communities and the country are freely taken, without recognition or permission, and are used to build up global economies. For example, the transfer of basmati varieties of rice from India to build the rice economy of US corporations like RiceTec for export.

2. Intellectual and cultural piracy in which the cultural and intellectual heritage of communities and the country is freely taken without recognition or permission and is used for claiming IPRs such as patents and trademarks even though the primary innovation and creativity has not taken place through corporate investment. For instance, the use of the trade name ‘basmati’ for their aromatic rice, or Pepsi’s use of the trade name Bikaneri bhujia.

3. Economic piracy in which the domestic and international markets are usurped through the use of trade names and IPRs, thereby destroying the local and national economies where the original innovation took place and wiping out the livelihoods and economic survival of millions: for example, US rice traders usurping European markets and Grace usurping the US market from small-scale Indian producers of neem-based bio-pesticides.

A patent is granted as an exclusive right for inventions which fulfil the criteria of novelty, non-obviousness, and utility. Traditional knowledge and the collective, cumulative innovations which it embodies clearly do not qualify as ”novelty”. Trivial and obvious modifications that can be undertaken by people skilled in the field of innovation violate the non-obviousness requirement and hence should not be patentable.

The biopiracy patent taken by RiceTec on basmati and the biopiracy patent taken by Monsanto on wheat were both achieved by using trivial, obvious modification of unique Indian crop varieties with unique characteristics to then claim sweeping rights over the characteristics, properties, traits in plants and products derived from them.

The decisive patent claims concern soft-milling wheat in which the relevant genes are either not present or not active. The patent means in fact a monopoly on the genetic characteristics of Nap Hal plants and on all wheat plants which are crossed with this Indian variety. In addition, it covers the flour gained from this wheat as well as ”dough produced from flour” and ”biscuits or the like, produced from flour”.

In its patent, Monsanto got the name of the wheat strain wrong, calling it ”Na phal”, which in Hindi means ”No fruit”. Instead of correctly identifying the mis-named wheat and challenging the biopiracy, India’s parliament and courts have been upholding and defending Monsanto’s biopiracy.

Thus India is loosing its sovereignty over its seeds and biodiversity and the collective innovation embodied in them. It is also losing access to European markets for wheat products with unique qualities provided by our traditional wheats, which are in high demand.

If unchallenged, the wheat biopiracy patent will insure that the prayer ”Give us this day our daily bread” will become a plea to Monsanto. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Vandana Shiva and - -
NEW DELHI, Jan 1 2004 (IPS)

The World Economic Forum has designed a world centred on capital and the men and corporations who control it, writes Vandana Shiva, author and international campaigner for women and the environment who received the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1993. In this column, Shiva writes that the rise of religious fundamentalisms, the growth of terrorism and violence, and militarisation and war, are inevitable consequences of an economic system which discounts peoples\’ fundamental human and democratic rights, basic needs, and ecological security. The message of people to power is peace and non-violence. Violence is the means and end of an economy based on greed, economic dictatorship and militarism. Non-violence in both means and end is the choice of the people. Corporate globalisation needed militarism, explicit or implicit. When 25,000 Indian peasants are forced to commit suicide, when Korean farmer Lee sacrificed his life in Cancun saying \’\’WTO kills farmers\’\’, globalisation is exposed as war by other means. When Halliburton and Bechtel emerge as the real winners of the Iraq war, it becomes clear that war is globalisation by other means. The struggle between people and capital is now an epic struggle between life and death. And it has just begun. This is the beginning of a new chapter of human history — not \’\’the end of history\’\’.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) designed a world shaped by the ”Davos Man” — a world centred on capital and the men and corporations who control it. Freedom for the Davos Man was therefore freedom for capital. The project for this freedom was corporate globalisation — a project which I identify as a product of capitalist patriarchy — reflected in the structural adjustment conditionalities of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), the distorted, biased, undemocratic rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and the neoliberal economic paradigm in general.

In this world centred on capital, everything is for sale, everything is a commodity. Biodiversity and life forms and genes and seeds are patentable intellectual property. Water, the very basis of life, is a tradeable commodity, not an ecological common or a fundamental human right. Food and agriculture are not the basis of sustenance, or livelihoods, but only sources of profits for agribusiness. Biodiversity and peasants have disappeared to make way for corporate-controlled globalised and industrial agriculture. Instead of healthy and safe food this perverse system has given us GMO’s, Mad Cows, and obesity.

The rise of religious fundamentalisms, the growth of terrorism and violence, and militarisation and war, are inevitable consequences of an economic system which discounts people’s fundamental human and democratic rights, their basic needs, and ecological security.

In Seattle, at the 1999 WTO Ministerial, the paradigm and project of corporate globalisation was challenged on a global scale by citizens from different parts of the world and different walks of life. Seattle marked a tectonic shift, in which people’s power stopped the juggernaut of globalisation, and the WTO meeting collapsed. Diversity and non-violence as the basis of social political change have been used effectively to erode the power and legitimacy of giant corporations, institutions that serve big money — the World Bank, IMF, WTO — and the violence, coercion and anti-democratic processes on which economic globalisation was based.

The emergent social movements based on diversity, self-organisation, solidarity, and non-violence were writing a new chapter of history in which the timeless struggle of people against power was shaping the future.

And when, on February 15, 2003, the largest ever mobilisation of people took place against War, civil society was acknowledged as the second superpower.

And at the World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre, organised after Seattle, a new slogan began to resonate in social movements: ”Another World is Possible”, which displaced the previous assumption about globalisation, that there is no alternative.

From January 16-21, 2004, the 4th World Social Forum will be held in Mumbai, India. The first message of the Forum to the WEF is in the name itself: the WSF gives primary importance to people and society; the WEF puts corporations and capital first.

The second message lies in the systems of organising — one controlled by capital, the other self-organised by thousands of groups. It is in the diversity and plurality of self-organisation that a new emergent politics has started to take shape.

The third message to Davos is peace and non-violence. Violence is both the means and the end of an economy based on greed, economic dictatorship, and militarism. Non-violence as both means and end is the choice of the people. Corporate globalisation needed militarism, explicit or implicit. When 25,000 Indian peasants are forced to commit suicide, when Korean farmer Lee sacrificed his life at the barricades in Cancun saying ”WTO kills farmers”, globalisation is exposed as war by other means. When Halliburton and Bechtel emerge as the real winners of the Iraq war, it becomes clear that war is globalisation by other means.

But there are two dangers that future WSF mobilisations face. The first comes from within the WSF process itself. While the success of Seattle and Cancun was the result of people’s self-organisational capacities and their solidarity in diversity, there is a tendency among some organisations involved in organising the WSF to imitate the giganticism and centralised control of the dominant structures being challenged by citizens, rather than to create a platform to host and energise diverse tendencies, movements, and cultures. This trend risks suffocating the WSF process.

In the new citizen politics the global needs the local, and the local needs the global. The movements that gave rise to Seattle had been built up at the national level first. We are a truly global resistance because the global is reflected in our local and national struggles. A global resistance without local roots cannot stand for long, just as local movements without global solidarity or a planetary or universal consciousness can become parochial, defensive, and insecure. It is not necessary to institutionalise the WSF. To do so is a costly waste. Bigness is the strength of power, the vulnerability of people. Smallness and diversity, in contrast, are the strength of people, the vulnerability of power.

The second threat to the WSF is arising externally, from old style politics based on patriarchal principles and the celebration of violence and fragmentation. The Mumbai Resistance 2004, organised to counter the WSF, reflects the divisiveness and violence of old style politics, which attempts to erode the politics of peace and diversity that the anti-globalisation movements have built over the last decade with their ”live and let live” approach. Our non-violence has been our strength. But that strength, which the establishment cannot take away from people, is threatened by some movements which make violence their main organisational strategy for change.

The struggle between people and capital is now an epic struggle between life and death. And it has just begun. This is the beginning of a new chapter of human history — not ”the end of history”. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Vandana Shiva and - -
NEW DELHI, May 1 2003 (IPS)

The introduction into Iraq of Bechtel, a company which has a history of aggravating water conflict, is a recipe for disaster and long-lasting water wars, writes Vandana Shiva, author, international campaigner for women and the environment, and recipient of the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1993. Its 680-million-dollar contract for rebuilding Iraq includes but is not limited to \’\’municipal water systems and sewage systems, major irrigation structures, and the dredging, repair and upgrading of the Umm Qasr seaport\’\’. In this article for IPS, the author writes that if we go by the record of the company\’s water privatisation experience in Bolivia, Bechtel will try to control the water resources, not just the water works of Iraq, claiming ownership of the Tigris and Euphrates. The executives at Bechtel have thirsted for control over Iraq for over 20 years. In 1983 Donald Rumsfeld, Reagan administration \’\’special Middle East envoy\’\’, met with Hussein to discuss a massive pipeline project proposed by Bechtel. Hussein eventually rejected the Bechtel proposal. Now again Donald Rumsfeld has \’\’taken care of business\’\’ for Bechtel. As secretary of defence, he has overseen the war to remove the obstacle and Bechtel is rolling in.

The introduction into Iraq of Bechtel, a company which has a history of aggravating water conflict, is a recipe for disaster. Its 680-million-dollar contract for rebuilding Iraq includes but is not limited to ”municipal water systems and sewage systems, major irrigation structures, and the dredging, repair, and upgrading of the Umm Qasr seaport”. Bechtel’s past record of pushing the privatisation of water has destabilised local communities in other parts of the world. In the parched Middle East, already seething with international water disputes, an attempt by a multinational water giant to grab this precious resource could spark long-lasting water wars.

The Tigris and Euphrates rivers are a water lifeline in the arid Middle East. The alluvial plain between the two rivers was the cradle of ancient civilisations including Assyria, Babylonian, and Sumer, and supported millions of people. Today these rivers represent a precious resource for the inhabitants of the region.

There is already considerable conflict over these two rivers. Turkey’s massive dam building projects, especially the GAP project, have upset the riparian states of Syria and Iraq. With over half the flow of both rivers generated in Turkey, the dams put the country in a position to regulate river flow. Syria and Iraq have worried that Turkish irrigation and electricity generation needs will determine how much water flows to them and have disputed Turkish claims to guarantee a minimum flow. UNESCO recently announced that a body of scientific mediators would be formed to handle international water disputes such as these.

The most famous tale of Bechtel’s corporate water greed is the story of Cochabamba, Bolivia. In the semi-desert region, water is scarce and precious. In 1999, the World Bank recommended privatisation of Cochabamba’s municipal water supply company (SEMAPA) through a concession to International Water, a subsidiary of Bechtel. On October 1999, the Drinking Water and Sanitation Law was passed, ending government subsidies and allowing privatisation.

In a city where the minimum wage is less than USD 100 a month, water bills reached USD 20 a month, nearly the cost of feeding a family of five for two weeks. In January 2000, a citizen’s alliance called the Coalition in Defense of Water and Life was formed and shut down the city for four days through mass mobilisation. Between January and February 2000, millions of Bolivians marched to Cochabamba, held a general strike, and stopped all transportation. The government promised to reverse the price hike but never did. In February 2000, the Coalition organised a peaceful march demanding the repeal of the Drinking Water and Sanitation Law, the annulment of ordinances allowing privatisation, the termination of the water contract, and the participation of citizens in drafting a water resource law. The citizens’ demands, which threatened corporate interests, were violently repressed.

The Coalition’s fundamental critique was directed at the negation of water as a community property. Protesters used slogans like ”Water is God’s gift and not merchandise” and ”Water is life”.

In April, 2000 the government tried to silence the water protests by imposing martial law. Activists were arrested, protestors were killed, and media were censored. Finally on April 10, 2000, the people won. Aquas del Tunari and Bechtel left Bolivia. The government was forced to revoke its hated water privatisation legislation. The water company, Servicio Municipal del Aqua Potable y Alcantarillado (SEMAPO), was handed over to the workers and the people, along with the debts. In the summer of 2000, the Coalition organised public hearings to establish democratic planning and management.

Thus the people have taken on the challenge to establish a water democracy, but the water dictators are trying their best to subvert the process. Bechtel is suing the Bolivian government, which in turn is harassing and threatening activists of the Coalition.

Given its track record in Bolivia, Bechtel will likely try to control the water resources and not just the water works of Iraq.

If the international community and the Iraqis are not vigilant, Bechtel could try to claim ownership of the Tigris and Euphrates, just as it tried to ”own” the wells of Bolivia.

In India, Bechtel was involved with Enron in the infamous Dabhol power plant project. This disastrous venture involved the suppression of local protests, the circumvention of environmental regulations, and secret deals worth billions of dollars. The parties in the state government elections even fought over this issue, with the party that was opposed to the deal winning office but then turning around and cutting a new contract for the power plant anyway.

Bechtel is now involved in water privatisation of Coimbatore/Tirrupur as part of a consortium with Mahindra and Mahindra and United International North West Water. As with other water privatisation contracts, this contract has not been made public. Business that can only be carried out behind closed doors, in secret, clearly does not promote freedom. It extinguishes it, along with democracy.

The executives at Bechtel have thirsted for control over Iraq for over 20 years. It was in 1983 that Donald Rumsfeld, as the ”special Middle East envoy” of the Reagan administration, met with Saddam Hussein to discuss a massive pipeline project proposed by Bechtel. Hussein, who had a habit of preferring French, German, and Russian companies, eventually rejected the Bechtel proposal. Now again Donald Rumsfeld has ”taken care of business” for Bechtel. As secretary of defense, he has overseen the war to remove the obstacle, and Bechtel is rolling in. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Vandana Shiva and - -
NEW DELHI, May 1 2003 (IPS)

Little more than two months from the start of the war against Iraq, the real victor is emerging: Bechtel, with its 680-million- dollar contract for \’\’rebuilding\’\’ Iraq, writes Vandana Shiva, author, international campaigner for women and the environment, and recipient of the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1993. In a period of declining economic growth and a slowing of the globalisation juggernaut, war has become a convenient excuse for enlarging corporate rule, Shiva writes in this article. In essence, Bechtel was given a license to make money in a closed-door process restricted to a handful of politically-connected US companies. The Bechtel contract and the Iraq war which created the opportunity for \’\’reconstruction\’\’ profits highlight the lack of democracy, transparency, and accountability in the way economic and political decisions are made by a US administration which has become indistinguishable from US corporations. A regime in which government becomes the instrument of corporate interests is no longer a democracy.

Little more than two months from the start of the war against Iraq, the real victor is emerging: Bechtel, with its 680-million-dollar contract for ”rebuilding” Iraq.

The US-led war began with the bombing of Iraq’s hospitals, bridges, and water works. Now US corporations are reaping the profits from ”reconstructing” the country. Blood was shed not just for oil but also for control over water and other vital services. In a period of declining economic growth and a slowing of the globalisation juggernaut, war has become a convenient excuse for enlarging corporate rule. When the World Trade Organisation is not enough, try force.

This seems to be the underlying economic and political philosophy of the neo-conservatives now ruling the US and trying to rule the world. What the past month has revealed is the total corruption on which the new world order is based.

The Bush administration gave Bechtel the first big Iraqi reconstruction contract –USD 680 million over 18 months– putting the firm in the driver’s seat for the long-term reconstruction of the country, which could cost USD 100 billion or more.

In essence, Bechtel was given a license to make money — and that license was granted in a closed-door process restricted to a handful of politically-connected US companies.

Today Saddam’s dictatorship is being replaced by a US corporate dictatorship in which there is little distinction left between those who sit in the board rooms and those who sit in the White House, the Pentagon, and other government bodies.

Bechtel, a privately-held firm, is one the world’s largest construction and engineering companies. Heavily involved in the post-World War Two US construction boom, it is currently

responsible for over 19,000 projects in 140 countries, with operations on all continents save Antarctica.

The way in which Bechtel received the Iraq contract is a glaring example of how corporate rule is established. Whether with water privatisation contracts in Bolivia or India or ”reconstruction” contracts for Iraq, secrecy and a lack of democracy and transparency characterises the methods employed to win markets and profits.

In awarding the contracts for rebuilding Iraq, US laws governing agency procurement were suspended. The standard competitive bidding process was ignored, and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) hand picked a few select companies to bid on the contract. Of these, only two actually bid, with Bechtel emerging victorious.

People are already questioning the process USAID and the Department of Defense used in awarding these contracts. The US General Accounting Office has launched a sweeping investigation, and a group of senators have introduced a bill requiring the agencies involved to disclose more details. As examples from around the world show, this secretive collusion of huge corporations and government bureaucrats is not an isolated phenomenon.

The US also seems caught in a fundamental confusion about ”reconstruction” and destruction. What happened in Iraq was destruction. Yet it is being referred to as reconstruction. Innocent people were killed, thousands of years of a civilisation’s history was destroyed and erased. Yet Jay Garner, the retired US general who served briefly as the head of the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, spoke of ”giving birth to a new system in Iraq”.

Bombs do not give ”birth” to society. They kill. New societies are not ”born” by destroying the historical and cultural legacy of ancient civilisations.

Maybe the choice to allow destruction of Iraq’s historical legacy was a prerequisite for this illusion of giving ”birth” to a new society. Maybe the rulers in the US do not perceive these violations because their own society was built on the genocide of native Americans. Annihilation of the ”other” seems ”natural” to those in control of the world’s lone superpower.

Maybe the perception of the deliberate destruction of a civilisation and thousands of innocent lives as a ”birthing” process is an expression of the western patriarchy’s ”illusion of creation” which confuses destruction with creation and annihilation with birthing.

The war profiteering by corporations like Bechtel confirms that war is globalisation by other means. For people around the world the challenge is to merge the energies of the anti-globalisation movement, the peace movement, and movements for real democracy.

We must reclaim the real meaning of freedom, rescuing it from the degradation of the doublespeak of ”free trade” and ”Operation Iraqi Freedom”. The ”freedom” sought through free-trade treaties and the Iraq war is the freedom of corporations to profit, a license to loot. And corporate loot and corporate freedom is destroying democracy and freedom for people and societies.

The Bechtel contract and the Iraq war which created the opportunity for ”reconstruction” profits highlight the lack of democracy, transparency, and accountability in the way economic and political decisions are made by a US administration which has become indistinguishable from US corporations. A system in which government becomes the instrument of corporate interests is no longer a democracy. For democracy to thrive, ”regime change” is urgently needed, in the US, in Iraq, and in every country where corporate dictatorship is being entrenched. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Vandana Shiva and - -
NEW DELHI, Jan 1 2003 (IPS)

If it is to stop terrorising the weak and the powerless to pry open markets for rich corporations and rich countries, the World Trade Organisation must be reformed, writes Vandana Shiva, an author and international campaigner for women and the environment. In this article for IPS, Shiva writes that what is urgently needed to bring justice and fairness into international trade rules, protect the survival of Third World peasants, and defend the food rights of the poor is to lower production costs and prevent unfair competition from artificially cheap subsidised imports. While US and European subsidies have actually increased in the past year, countries like India have been forced to remove import restrictions and have seen domestic markets and prices collapse as artificially-cheap, heavily-subsidised products flood the market. Sustainable agriculture/organic farming along with import restrictions are the only guarantee for livelihood security and food security in the Third World, the author writes.

If it is to stop terrorising the weak and the powerless to pry open markets for rich corporations and countries, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) must be reformed. The WTO today is neither designed for nor capable of disciplining the powerful.

What is urgently needed to bring justice and fairness into international trade rules, protect the survival of Third World peasants, and defend the food rights of the poor is to lower production costs and prevent unfair competition from artificially cheap subsidised imports.

These are the issues that should top the priority list at the upcoming WTO ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico (10û14 September 2003).

The Uruguay Round (1994) of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs was sold to the Third World on a single expectation — that the rich countries would reduce their subsidies, lower their tariffs, and create export opportunities for poor countries.

The Doha ministerial in November 2001 used the same lure, adding the threat of terrorism as an addition motivation. Stuart Harbinson, Chair of the General Council of WTO at the time, admitted:

”There is a certain amount of feeling that the events of September 11 were a bit of a threat to the world and to the established way of doing things in the world. And it was important for multilateral institutions, not just the WTO, to be seen operating successfully. So I think that put a bit of extra pressure on people to have a result.”

Clearly, the so-called ”Doha Round” was not a negotiation but a farce staged to make the WTO ”be seen as operating successfully”. It was an attempt to keep illusions alive, not to regulate trade. The Seattle failure had made this necessary.

The inability and unwillingness of the WTO to regulate the trade abuses of the powerful and rich is clearly demonstrated by the fact that US and European subsidies have actually increased since Doha. The Bush administration recently passed a farm act that increases US agricultural subsidies by 10 percent — to around USD 20 billion a year. In Europe, current subsidies will be maintained until 2013.

Meanwhile, countries like India have been forced to remove import restrictions (referred to as quantitative restrictions, or QRs) and have seen domestic markets and prices collapse as artificially-cheap, heavily-subsidised products flood the market. As a result of unfair trade legalised by the WTO, India’s agricultural imports have quadrupled, from USD 1.04 billion in 1995 to USD 4.16 billion in 2000.

While global trade benefiting northern agribusiness grows, Third World farmers are loosing their livelihoods. For example, the coffee trade has increased from USD 40 billion to USD 70 billion over the past few years. At the same time, coffee growers’ income has dropped from USD 9 billion to USD 5 billion.

Indian cotton farmers are losing their livelihoods as a result of both the dumping of heavily-subsidised Texas cotton and costly and unreliable seeds, like Monsanto’s genetically-engineered Bt. cotton. India’s inheritance from the WTO rules of trade liberalisation has come in the form of suicides of farmers and starvation deaths.

The double standards and distortions in the WTO are plain to see. That is why even the flimsy democratic base of negotiations in Geneva is being substituted by ”mini-ministerials” — in Sydney this past November and in Tokyo this February. These small secretive meetings are perfect for arm-twisting, threatening, and bribing, and any outcome they produce is an outrage against transparency and democracy.

As we move to Cancun, the issues of democracy, food, hunger, and farmers’ survival should top the agenda.

Sustainable agriculture/organic farming, together with QRs and anti-dumping and anti-trust laws against global corporations, is the only guarantee for livelihood and food security in the Third World.

Yet while QRs are being demanded by all farmers movements across the world, there is a concerted attempt to deflect attention from the issue, which would force a change in WTO rules, to issues which help reinforce the WTO.

After Seattle, the diversion from QRs was created with the ”market access” argument, according to which the WTO is necessary to force developed countries to open up their markets to Third World countries.

Now the argument has shifted to ”subsidies”: the WTO, it is now asserted, is needed to eliminate the rich countries’ subsidies. This is demonstrably false, for a number of reasons:

1. The current rules of the WTO have built in a ”peace” clause for the rich countries up to 2005 (Art. 13 of the Agreement on Agriculture).

2. The very categorisation of subsidies in the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) has designated most subsidies in the US and EU as ”green box” and ”blue box”, which are not considered ”trade distorting” and thus not actionable under the WTO.

3. Even while the built-in review of the AoA is under way — starting in 2001– the US has further increased its farm subsidies to USD 180 billion over the next few years.

4. The recent US decision on the textile agreement shows clearly that the US will not bend to the WTO when it goes against domestic lobbies — an attitude reinforced by the new military role of the US since 9/11. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Vandana Shiva and - -
NEW DELHI, Jan 1 2003 (IPS)

There are two paradigms vying for the future of food and farming: one is based on non-sustainable production on large-scale industrial farms with costly hybrid/genetically modified (GM) seed and agrochemical inputs, the other on small farms, ecological /organic internal inputs/systems which are low cost and accessible to poor producers, writes Vandana Shiva, an author and international campaigner for women and the environment. In this article for IPS, the author writes a deceptive productivity calculus has then been used to sell the bogus claim that without industrial agriculture, pesticides, and genetically- modified organisms (GMOs), the world cannot be fed. Quite to the contrary, the solution to hunger and poverty is the promotion of ecological, organic, biodiverse small farms which use less energy and fewer natural resources, reduce the costs of inputs, and produce more nutritional output per unit acre. While the conditionalities imposed by global trade and financial institutions are preventing the government from supporting the poor\’s access to adequate and nutritious food, they are promoting the diversion of subsidies from people to corporations. If we are to build food security upwards and outwards from the household to the community to national and global levels, the principle for trade and distribution must be localisation, not globalisation.

There are two paradigms vying for the future of food and farming. One is based on non-sustainable production on large-scale industrial farms with costly hybrid/genetically modified (GM) seed and agrochemical inputs monopolised by a handful of biotech/agrochemical giants (Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow, Dupont, etc.) and globalised trade controlled by a handful of agribusiness corporations (Cargill, ADM, Pepsico, etc.)

The other model is based on small farms, ecological/organic internal inputs/systems which are low cost and accessible to poor producers.

The industrial, large-scale, globalised food system is non-sustainable and a source of economic inequality and food insecurity. It is being sold to the world through a basic misrepresentation of its actual operation.

The most common justifications for the spread of industrial techniques in agriculture are their ”high efficiency and productivity”, yet these systems in fact have low productivity levels when total resource use and total output are measured. Small biodiverse farms have much higher productivity in terms of resource use efficiency and higher production of biomass and nutrition per acre. The artificially constructed ”efficiency” of industrial farms is obtained by excluding the large resource inputs they require (focusing only on labour as an input) and considering only the ”yields” of single commodities while ignoring diverse outputs of biodiverse farms.

This deceptive productivity calculus has then been used to sell the bogus claim that without industrial agriculture, pesticides, and genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), the world cannot be fed. Quite to the contrary, the solution to hunger and poverty is the promotion of ecological, organic, biodiverse small farms which use less energy and fewer natural resources, reduce the costs of inputs, and produce more nutritional output per unit acre.

Hunger, however, is not just a result of a lack of food but a lack of access to food. As Nobel economist Amartya Sen has observed, hunger and famine result from a lack of entitlements to food, which are eroded when farm incomes decline, either because of rising production costs or falling agricultural prices, usually both.

The globalisation of agriculture through IMF/World Bank structural adjustment programmes or WTO trade liberalization rules is causing a reduction in farmers’ income in the Third World by raising the costs of inputs and lowering the prices of outputs. The shift from open-pollinated farm-saved seeds to non-renewable hybrids and GM seeds has led to high levels of crop failure, farm indebtedness, and suicides by farmers. Not only are the seeds expensive; they have to be bought every season along with costly pesticides and herbicides. And these costs are sure to rise as super weeds and super pests are created by GM seeds and the failure of ecological narcotics.

Moreover, the claims of yields by seed/biotech corporations are usually false and inflated. For example, in the maize/Round up package that Monsanto is promoting in the fragile desert state of Rajasthan, Monsanto publicity brochures claim a yield of 22-50 tons/hectare, whereas the Monsanto field staff cite 3 tons/ha, and data from farmers shows a yield of 1.7 tons/ha.

Similarly, while Monsanto is spreading global propaganda that Indian farmers are demanding its GM Bt. cotton seed, cotton farmers are suing the government and the corporation for USD 104 million damage because of the total failure of Bt. cotton in the state of Maharashtra. Bt. cotton has also failed in the Indian states of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat.

Global commodity prices are distorted by another phenomenon: a combination of high export subsidies in the North which artificially reduce prices of export commodities; direct payments to farmers which allow corporations to drive procurement prices below sustenance level and production costs; decoupling the cost of production and commodity prices, which has made the Agriculture Agreement of WTO into an agreement on legalised dumping; and the forced removal of import restrictions (Quantitative Restrictions or QRs).

There is an attempt to reduce the debate on the distortion of domestic agriculture by imports to a debate on subsidies alone. This confuses the critical distinction between subsidies and support. Support is public expenditure on public goods and services such as resource conservation, ecosystem, protection, generation of livelihoods, protection of culture, and safeguarding of public health — a necessity for social systems to function sustainably.

Subsidies, in contrast, are a government expenditure undertaken to increase private benefit and profit and which distorts prices. By deliberately confusing support and subsidies, agribusiness, and global trade organisations are managing to dismantle social support for sustainable agriculture and fair prices for both farmers and poor consumers, destroying livelihood security, food security, and ecological security.

While the conditionalities imposed by global trade and financial institutions are preventing the government from supporting the poor’s access to adequate and nutritious food, they are promoting the diversion of subsidies from people to corporations.

While WTO trade rules force the elimination of domestic agricultural subsidies for Indian farmers, driving up the price of their goods, Western agricultural products are imported at prices kept artificially low by massive domestic subsidies in the North still permitted by the WTO. As people buy the cheaper imported substitutes, a surplus of unsold Indian products builds up, which is then exported at a cut rate. For example, while Indians pay USD 235 per tonne for imported rice, exporters are buying Indian rice for USD 117 per tonne — a subsidy of USD 1.25 billion. This is how globalisation is causing hunger and starvation in the Third World — starving the poor to feed the corporations.

If we are to build food security upwards and outwards from the household to the community to regional, national and global levels, the principle for trade and distribution must be localisation, not globalisation. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

The genetic manipulation of food products could have terrible consequences for the planet and for people, but the corporations producing these transgenic seed varieties are only interested in profits, says noted a biotechnologist.

-

It is a technology in which a tiny few decide which traits are desirable in our plants and animals and peoples. And it is these decisions that, unbeknownst to most of us, are already placing their products — GE cotton, soy, corn and potatoes — on our markets.

In their rush to sell these products, GE companies are failing to perform adequate testing or ensure that plants and animals in the centers of biological diversity are protected from genetic pollution. The displacement, harm, or outright extinction of plants, animals, or microorganisms as a result of their intervention does not concern them. Nor do the long-term effects on human health.

The real motivation of these companies is not to increase the nutritional value of food or feed the world, as they claim, but to increase their profits.

Movements have sprung up around the world in opposition to this technology. The leaders of many of these groups have formed a network called Diverse Women for Diversity, which met in New Delhi earlier this year for a public panel on genetic engineering and food safety.

These leaders were among the first to propose safety laws relating to genetically modified organisms (GMOs), but back then they were not called biosafety laws but Rules for the Manufacture, Use, Import, Export and Storage of Hazardous Microorganisms, Genetically-Engineered Organisms or Cells. The legislation was drafted by scientists who understood genetic manipulation and the risks involved — and went into effect in 1989.

These rules were clearly violated when three years ago Monsanto entered India with its genetically engineered ''Bt'' cotton.

Partly as a result of the awareness of activist groups in India and partly because of a legal challenge to the introduction of GE products now pending before the Indian Supreme Court, the sale of Bt cotton is not possible.

However, this is no cause for complacency: large-scale trials of the cotton are currently being conducted in India, and when Monsanto is ready to sell, it will do all it can to manipulate the government. Moreover, it has gone ahead with seed production, despite the fact this is not allowed under trial conditions, which require the destruction of transgenic material for biosafety reasons.

At the annual Indian Science Congress this February, the entire biotech industry arrived essentially to launch their products. One of the ''opportunities'' announced was that Indian judges would be taken to the United States for ''education.''

The meaning of ''education'' is clear in this context. A troubling example of the effect of such ''education'' is the way so-called ''Golden Rice'' — which was genetically engineered to contain vitamin A — is now being marketed as a cure for malnutrition.

There is no mention of the diversity of wild and cultivated plants that women have long used to provide a vitamin A-rich diet, nor of the nutritious greens that have been wiped out by the introduction of this GE rice as a monoculture crop.

The ramifications of the genetic engineering of food extend well into the political sphere. Worldwide, hundreds of thousands of peasant families who rely on natural seeds for farming have been pushed out of the market. When you lose your own food technology you lose some of your rights.

Former minister for Environmental Development in Mexico, Ursula Oswald Spring, charges that the transformation of food from a thing of great cultural importance and beauty to a cause of insecurity and fear is nothing less than a crime against humanity and particularly against the original food providers: women.

At the meeting of Diverse Women for Diversity, Oswald warned of negative health impacts, particularly of possible genetic pollution caused by the technologies promoted by the transnationals.

She emphasized that tampering with natural processes could destabilize the entire system. A gene introduced into the open can act like a deadly toxin — and once it is out, it can never be recalled.

The effects have already devastated a group of Canadian farmers. According to Holly Dressel, Canadian journalist and co-author of ''From Naked Ape to Super Species,'' within two growing seasons GE canola contaminated the entire Canadian corn crop through cross-pollination, thus causing the collapse of the Canadian market in Europe, where public resistance to GE foods is very strong. This left farmers with no option but the North American market or dumping the product on the Third World as ''food aid.''

The crossing of species practiced in genetic engineering — for example, the introduction of a pig gene into wheat — can lead to species jumping by bacterial and viral diseases. The fact that both HIV/AIDS and Ebola crossed from other species to humans should make this risk frighteningly clear. Most geneticists who are not on the payroll of large bio-tech companies are deeply concerned by the ramifications.