Work/Views

Vandana Shiva is well known for her work in ecology, feminism and anti-globalization. She has gained respect and recognition for her published works and participation in awareness events. In this section, her activity in the anti-globalization of agriculture is explored.

The Chipko Movement

In the 1970s, Shiva participated in the Chipko Movement in India , in which a largely women-based crowd hugged trees in order to prevent their felling ( Netphotograph ). The trees are a “direct provision of food, fuel and fodder [to the people of India ] and because of their role in stabilising soil and water resources” (Bahuguna) as compared to a large middle-man industry, so it was natural for many locals to gather and protest their felling. The first hint of the Chipko Movement occurred in 1973 and then spread gradually (Bahuguna).

The Green Revolution

Shiva has been highly critical of the Green Revolution. The Green Revolution, dating for 10 years between 1967/68 to 1977/78, was India 's response to a large famine in 1943, wherein approximately four million people died (EduGreen). The Green Revolution changed this completely, turning India “from a food-deficient country to one of the world's leading agricultural nations” (EduGreen) by employing the following techniques:

•  Continuing expansion of farming areas

•  Double-cropping existing farmland (yielding two crops per year as opposed to just one)

•  Using seeds with improved genetics (for example, using rice over millet)

In terms of dividing land, there are several problems with simply expanding farming areas. As Shiva points out, “one acre of rice uses as much water as three acres of sorghum. For the same amount of water, sorghum provides 4.5 times more protein, four times more minerals, 7.5 times more calcium, and 5.6 times more iron, and can yield three times more food than rice [the food being grown]. Had development taken water conservation into account, sorghum and millet would not have been called marginal or inferior crops” (Shiva). This also required taking the factor of watering into account; since the Revolution placed “emphasis on high-yield seed,” it “replaced drought-resistant local crop varieties with water-guzzling crops” (Shiva). The water-hungry modified crops started taking water away from land which barely had any water to begin with. There are also issues with the “increasing use of agrochemical-based pest and weed control” in the crops that has started to impact the crops' vicinity and peoples' health (EduGreen).