Seed is not just the source of life. It is the very foundation of our being. Vandana Shiva More Quotes by Vandana Shiva More Quotes From Vandana Shiva Soil, not oil, holds the future for humanity. Vandana Shiva soil oil humanity In the seed and the soil, we find the answers to every one of the crises we face. The crises of violence and war. The crises of hunger and disease. The crisis of the destruction of democracy. Vandana Shiva soil democracy war Today you have a situation where now the prescription is: People who dont have enough money to buy food should end up paying for their drinking water. That is going to be the kind of situation in which you will get more child labor. You will get more exploitation of women. Youre going to get an absolutely exploitative economy as the very basis of living becomes a source of capital accumulation and corporate growth. In fact, the chief of Coca-Cola in India said: Our biggest market in India comes from the fact that there is no drinking water left. People will have to buy Coca-Cola. Vandana Shiva drinking children people It's not an investment if its destroying the planet. Vandana Shiva investment destroying planets The primary threat to nature and people today comes from centralising and monopolising power and control. Not until diversity is made the logic of production will there be a chance for sustainability, justice and peace. Cultivating and conserving diversity is no luxury in our times: it is a survival imperative. Vandana Shiva luxury diversity justice I describe what is happening as 'food fascism' because this system can only survive through totalitarian control. With patents on seed, an illegitimate legal system is manipulated to create seed monopolies. Seed laws that require uniformity - which criminalize diversity and the use of open-pollinated seeds - are fascist in nature. Suing farmers after contaminating their crops, [...] is another aspect of this fascism. Pseudo-hygiene laws that criminalize local, artisanal food are food fascism. And attacks on scientists and the silencing of independent research [...] are examples of knowledge fascism. Vandana Shiva hygiene independent law The end of consumerism and accumulation is the beginning of the joy of living. Vandana Shiva accumulation ends joy Whenever we engage in consumption or production patterns which take more than we need, we are engaging in violence. Vandana Shiva patterns violence needs That amazing power of being able to stand with total courage in the face of total power and not be afraid. That is stri shakti. Vandana Shiva shakti able faces Earth Democracy connects people in circles of care, cooperation, and compassion instead of dividing them through competition and conflict, fear and hatred. Vandana Shiva circles compassion people The fact that I still find so much beauty in a handicraft is because my mother taught us to see not just the craft as a product but the craft as an embodiment of human creativity and human labor. Vandana Shiva taught-us creativity mother The only way to build hope is throuhgh the Earth. Vandana Shiva earth way If you want a cow to be not just a cow but a milk machine, you can do a very good job at that by creating new hormones like the Bovine Growth Hormone. It might make the cow very ill, it might turn it into a drug addict, and it might even create consumer scares about the health and safety aspects of the milk. But we've gotten so used to manipulating objects and organisms and ecosystems for a single objective that we ignore the costs involved. I call this the "monoculture of the mind." Vandana Shiva growth-hormones ecosystems jobs Although two thirds of our planet is water, we face an acute water shortage. The water crisis is the most pervasive , most severe, and most invisible dimension of the ecological devastation of the earth. Vandana Shiva earth water two It is time to learn from the mistakes of monocultures of the mind and the essentialising violence of reductionist thought. It is time to turn to diversity for healing. Vandana Shiva diversity healing mistake The kind of capitalism we are seeing today under this expansion of property into living resources is a whole, new, different phase of capitalism. It is totally inconsistent with democracy as well as with sustainability. What we have is capital working on a global scale, totally uprooted, with accountability nowhere, with responsibility nowhere, and with rights everywhere. This new capital, with absolute freedom and no accountability, is structurally anti-life, anti-freedom. Vandana Shiva accountability responsibility rights If you are doing the right thing for the earth, she's giving you great company. Vandana Shiva great-company earth giving We could replace people with fossil fuels, have higher and higher levels of industrialization, of agriculture, of production, without thinking of the green-house gases we were admitting, and climate change is really the pollution of the engineering paradigm, when fossil fuels drove industrialism. To now offer that same mindset as a solution is to not take seriously what Einstein said: that you can't solve the problems by using the same mindset that caused them. Vandana Shiva engineering agriculture thinking I have called this phenomenon of stealing common knowledge and indigenous science "biopiracy" and "intellectual piracy." According to patent systems we shouldn't be able to patent what exists as "prior art." But the United States patent system is somewhat perverted. First of all, it does not treat the prior art of other societies as "prior art." Therefore anyone from the United States can travel to another country, find out about the use of a medicinal plant, or find a seed that farmers use, come back here, claim it as an invention or an innovation. Vandana Shiva innovation country art Patriarchy is based on appropriating rights and leaving responsibility to others. Vandana Shiva leaving responsibility rights
