Vandana Shiva: "Agroecology and The Great Simplification"
Episode 46
November 23, 2022
(Conversation Recorded on November 8, 2022.)
Today, ecology activist and regenerative agriculture advocate Vandana Shiva joins me to discuss how her lifetime of work has shaped the way she sees the world. From chaining herself to trees to winning against powerful agriculture giants like Monsanto, Vandana shares the many lessons she’s learned in fighting for food systems that are better for the Earth and better for humans. Can we shift away from fossil input intensive agriculture that produces commodities lacking in full nutrients towards one with more labor, more community and more nutritious food?
About Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva is a well known activist, author of many books, and is a global champion on regenerative local agriculture, biodiversity and nutritious food. She has a PhD in physics and 40 years ago founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, an independent research institute that works on the most significant ecological problems of our times.
Show Notes & Links to Learn More
00:37 - Vandana Shiva Works + Info
00:52 - Navdanya Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology
01:10 - Chipko Movement
03:20 - Ecological effects of deforestation
05:22 - International Forum of Globalization
05:35 - Outsourcing emissions
06:31 - The violence of the green revolution
07:11 - Haber-Bosch and its violent roots
07:34 - Rachel Carson, Albert Howard
07:48 - Red Revolution
08:19 - Heavy water use in industrial agriculture using chemicals
08:32 - Punjab farmers revolting in India
09:00 - The cancer train in Punjab
10:05 - The agricultural testament
10:16 - Rodale Institute, Soil Association in England
11:33 - Monsanto and seed controversy
11:45 - Indian law that states that no plant, animal, seed is a human invention and cannot be patented
12:26 - Sri Lanka and ban of imports of synthetic fertilizer and recent uprisings
13:05 - Sri Lanka’s deep debt, BlackRock
15:38 - 60% of the seeds in the world controlled by big agriculture companies
16:20 - Nutrition per acre and soil fertility is much higher in organic agriculture
17:54 - British empire taking half of food grown in India as tax in cash, 3-6 million people die of famine
20:01 - Nate’s research on our compulsive, growth based system
20:51 - Pastoralism
21:02 - Rice growing regions of Asia have massive populations
21:15 - Involution, intensification of the carrying capacity
24:04 - Amory Lovins - work on energy slaves
25:45 - COP 27 + Frankly on the topic
28:29 - Soil Not Oil
30:52 - Food grown in industrial agriculture is devoid of nutrition
32:05 - Percentage of people working in agriculture in the US, percentage in India
32:42 - If we focused on biodiversity on every part of the land, we would feed 2x the people
34:22 - India initiative to shrink the number of people farming
34:57 - Vandana’s calculation that absorbing all the farmers into cities would take 350 years
35:33 - After NAFTA, ⅓ of Mexico’s economy became an economy of crime because productive work was gone
36:22 - Afghanis having to grow opium to survive
37:48 - Percentage of US food that is wasted
37:55 - Percentage of emissions come from the food system
38:08 - If we reconstructed agriculture, we could take down emissions in 10 years and produce more food
40:29 - Vandana’s seed saving project
41:02 - Seeds that can tolerate salt
41:32 - Millet, 2023 year of millet
42:41 - 400,000 farmers commit suicide in India since globalization, overlapping with cotton belt
43:37 - Gandhi's ashrams, work with the spinning wheel, economic freedom the base of political freedom
46:45 - Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and India
48:00 - The care economy
48:34 - The Masculine Birth of Time - Francis Bacon
49:15 - Geo engineering, Bill Gates
49:55 - Gandhi quote, “Make me more womanly”
50:40 - Herman Daly
51:32 - Greed to Care
51:45 - Oikonomia - the art of living vs Chrematistics - the art of money making
53:17 - Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard Address
58:45 - Chapati and 1857 communication via chapati
1:05:00 - Regenerative agriculture can increase water capacity of soil and water table levels