Navdanya
Encyclopedia
Navdanya is an India
n-based non-governmental organization
which promotes biodiversity conservation
, biodiversity
, organic farming
, the rights of farmers, and the process of seed saving
. One of Navdanya's founders, and outspoken members, is Vandana Shiva
, an environmental activist, physicist
, and author
. Navdanya began in 1984 as a program of the Research Foundation for science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE), a participatory research initiative founded by world-renowned scientist and environmentalist Dr. Vandana Shiva, to provide direction and support to environmental activism. "Navdanya" means "nine crops" that represent India's collective source of food security
.
Navdanya is a member of the Terra Madre slow food movement
.
Navdanya is a network of seed keepers and organic producers spread across 16 states in India.
Navdanya has helped set up 54 community seed bank
s across the country, trained over 500,000 farmers in seed sovereignty, food sovereignty
and sustainable agriculture
over the past two decades, and helped set up the largest direct marketing
, fair trade
organic network in the country.
Navdanya has also set up a learning center, Bija Vidyapeeth (School of the Seed) on its biodiversity conservation and organic farm in Doon Valley
, Uttranchal, north India.
Navdanya is actively involved in the rejuvenation of indigenous knowledge and culture. It has created awareness on the hazards of genetic engineering
, defended people's knowledge from biopiracy
and food rights in the face of globalisation and climate change
.
Navdanya is a women centred movement for the protection of biological
and cultural diversity
.
emissions which are causing climate change. Saving seeds of climate resilient
crops is a vital safe guard in times of climate change. Millet
s use only 200 to 300 mls of water but give 40 times more nutrition than industrially and chemically farmed rice which required 2500 mm of water and loses all nutrients when it is industrially processed. You can source your open pollinated organic seeds from Navdanya’s Seeds of Freedom campaign.
s (GMOs) in agriculture. Working with citizens' movements, grassroot
organizations, NGOs and governments, they have made significant contributions to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Biosafety Protocol.
Navdanya's research and campaigns have highlighted the deepening crisis of hunger and starvation, debt and farmers suicides caused by high cost but unreliable GM and hybrid seeds. In the field of food and agriculture, Navdanya has raised serious concerns about the ecological and health impacts of GMOs. Since 1991 they have been campaigning against the commercialization of GM crops and food in India and have highlighted the dangerous effects of these crops and foods on our biodiversity, environment and health. One of Navdanya's goals is to educate the public at large on the harmful effects of biopiracy.
Since 1997, Navdanya is actively monitoring the GM related activities and development in India Freedom from Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and conducted field surveys on the performance of Bt. cotton every year during the field trials as well as after its commercialization and proved companies and governments’ claims deceitful and fallacious. Through The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE), they have also filed a Public Interest Litigation
(PIL) in the Supreme Court in 1999 against US seed giant Monsanto
and Indian authorities for the illegal and unauthorized introduction of GMOs in India through field trials of these crops, bypassing and violating environmental laws, without involving and informing the local authorities and the local public.
Navdanya has also been involved in and leading campaigns against GMOs on an international level. During the WTO
Hong Kong Ministerial, Navdanya joined 740 other organizations in presenting their opposition to WTO's attempt to undermine the right of individual countries to take appropriate steps to protect their farmland, environment and consumers from the risks posed by GM foods and crops. In India RFSTE and other concerned groups have demanded that the Government fulfill their obligation towards the Indian farmers, Indian consumers, the environment, biodiversity and sustainable agriculture by imposing a 10 year moratorium on the impending release of GMOs in India.
(no. 436257 B1) in the European Patent Office
(EPO) at Munich, Germany.
Along with RFSTE, the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) of Germany and Ms. Magda Alvoet, former Green Member of the European Parliament were party to the challenge. The patent on Neem was revoked in May 2000 and it was reconfirmed on 8 March 2005 when the EPO revoked in entirety the controversial patent, and adjudged that there was “no inventive step” involved in the fungicide patent, thus confirming the ‘prior art’ of the use of Neem.
In 1998, Navdanya started a campaign against Basmati biopiracy (Patent No. 5663484) of a US company RiceTec. On Aug 14th 2001 Navdanya achieved another victory against biopiracy and patent on life when the United States Patent and Trademark Office
(USPTO) revoked a large section of the patent on Indian Basmati rice by the US corporations RiceTec Inc. These included:
Through the citizens’ actions, Navdanya has won three biopiracy battles and have thus contributed to the defense of farmers’ rights, indigenous knowledge and biodiversity. Navdanya’s focus on collective, cumulative innovation embodies in indigenous knowledge has created a worldwide movement for the defense of the intellectual rights of communities.
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n-based non-governmental organization
Non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...
which promotes biodiversity conservation
Conservation movement
The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental and a social movement that seeks to protect natural resources including animal, fungus and plant species as well as their habitat for the future....
, biodiversity
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
, organic farming
Organic farming
Organic farming is the form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost and biological pest control to maintain soil productivity and control pests on a farm...
, the rights of farmers, and the process of seed saving
Seed saving
In agriculture and gardening, seed saving is the practice of saving seeds or other reproductive material from open-pollinated vegetables, grain, herbs, and flowers for use from year to year for annuals and nuts, tree fruits, and berries for perennials and trees...
. One of Navdanya's founders, and outspoken members, is Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva , is a philosopher, environmental activist, and eco feminist. Shiva, currently based in Delhi, has authored more than 20 books and over 500 papers in leading scientific and technical journals. She was trained as a physicist and received her Ph.D...
, an environmental activist, physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
, and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
. Navdanya began in 1984 as a program of the Research Foundation for science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE), a participatory research initiative founded by world-renowned scientist and environmentalist Dr. Vandana Shiva, to provide direction and support to environmental activism. "Navdanya" means "nine crops" that represent India's collective source of food security
Food security
Food security refers to the availability of food and one's access to it. A household is considered food-secure when its occupants do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. According to the World Resources Institute, global per capita food production has been increasing substantially for the past...
.
Terra Madre
Terra Madre is a network of food communities, each committed to producing quality food in a responsible, sustainable way. Terra Madre also refers to a major bi-annual conference held in Torino, Italy intended to foster discussion and introduce innovative concepts in the field of food, gastronomy,...
.
Navdanya is a network of seed keepers and organic producers spread across 16 states in India.
Navdanya has helped set up 54 community seed bank
Seedbank
A seedbank stores seeds as a source for planting in case seed reserves elsewhere are destroyed. It is a type of gene bank. The seeds stored may be food crops, or those of rare species to protect biodiversity. The reasons for storing seeds may be varied...
s across the country, trained over 500,000 farmers in seed sovereignty, food sovereignty
Food sovereignty
"Food sovereignty" is a term coined by members of Via Campesina in 1996 to refer to a policy framework advocated by a number of farmers, peasants, pastoralists, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, women, rural youth and environmental organizations, namely the claimed "right" of peoples to define their...
and sustainable agriculture
Sustainable agriculture
Sustainable agriculture is the practice of farming using principles of ecology, the study of relationships between organisms and their environment...
over the past two decades, and helped set up the largest direct marketing
Direct marketing
Direct marketing is a channel-agnostic form of advertising that allows businesses and nonprofits to communicate straight to the customer, with advertising techniques such as mobile messaging, email, interactive consumer websites, online display ads, fliers, catalog distribution, promotional...
, fair trade
Fair trade
Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries make better trading conditions and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers as well as higher social and environmental standards...
organic network in the country.
Navdanya has also set up a learning center, Bija Vidyapeeth (School of the Seed) on its biodiversity conservation and organic farm in Doon Valley
Doon Valley
Doon Valley is a valley located in Sivalik Hills in Uttarakhand, India. It is the location of Dehradun, capital of Uttarakhand state.-Etmology:...
, Uttranchal, north India.
Navdanya is actively involved in the rejuvenation of indigenous knowledge and culture. It has created awareness on the hazards of genetic engineering
Genetic engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct human manipulation of an organism's genome using modern DNA technology. It involves the introduction of foreign DNA or synthetic genes into the organism of interest...
, defended people's knowledge from biopiracy
Biopiracy
- Biopiracy and bioprospecting :Bioprospecting is an umbrella term describing the discovery of new and useful biological samples and mechanisms, typically in less-developed countries, either with or without the help of indigenous knowledge, and with or without compensation...
and food rights in the face of globalisation and climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
.
Navdanya is a women centred movement for the protection of biological
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
and cultural diversity
Cultural diversity
Cultural diversity is having different cultures respect each other's differences. It could also mean the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole...
.
Save a Seed
Chemical farming is a major contributor to greenhouse gasGreenhouse gas
A greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone...
emissions which are causing climate change. Saving seeds of climate resilient
Resilience (ecology)
In ecology, resilience is the capacity of an ecosystem to respond to a perturbation or disturbance by resisting damage and recovering quickly. Such perturbations and disturbances can include stochastic events such as fires, flooding, windstorms, insect population explosions, and human activities...
crops is a vital safe guard in times of climate change. Millet
Millet
The millets are a group of small-seeded species of cereal crops or grains, widely grown around the world for food and fodder. They do not form a taxonomic group, but rather a functional or agronomic one. Their essential similarities are that they are small-seeded grasses grown in difficult...
s use only 200 to 300 mls of water but give 40 times more nutrition than industrially and chemically farmed rice which required 2500 mm of water and loses all nutrients when it is industrially processed. You can source your open pollinated organic seeds from Navdanya’s Seeds of Freedom campaign.
GMO Free Campaign
Navdanya has led the national and international movement for biosafety and against the dangers of Genetically Modified OrganismGenetically modified organism
A genetically modified organism or genetically engineered organism is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. These techniques, generally known as recombinant DNA technology, use DNA molecules from different sources, which are combined into one...
s (GMOs) in agriculture. Working with citizens' movements, grassroot
Grassroots
A grassroots movement is one driven by the politics of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it are natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures...
organizations, NGOs and governments, they have made significant contributions to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Biosafety Protocol.
Navdanya's research and campaigns have highlighted the deepening crisis of hunger and starvation, debt and farmers suicides caused by high cost but unreliable GM and hybrid seeds. In the field of food and agriculture, Navdanya has raised serious concerns about the ecological and health impacts of GMOs. Since 1991 they have been campaigning against the commercialization of GM crops and food in India and have highlighted the dangerous effects of these crops and foods on our biodiversity, environment and health. One of Navdanya's goals is to educate the public at large on the harmful effects of biopiracy.
Since 1997, Navdanya is actively monitoring the GM related activities and development in India Freedom from Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and conducted field surveys on the performance of Bt. cotton every year during the field trials as well as after its commercialization and proved companies and governments’ claims deceitful and fallacious. Through The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE), they have also filed a Public Interest Litigation
Public interest litigation
In Indian law, Public Interest Litigation OR जनहित याचिका means litigation for the protection of the public interest. It is litigation introduced in a court of law, not by the aggrieved party but by the court itself or by any other private party...
(PIL) in the Supreme Court in 1999 against US seed giant Monsanto
Monsanto
The Monsanto Company is a US-based multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation. It is the world's leading producer of the herbicide glyphosate, marketed in the "Roundup" brand of herbicides, and in other brands...
and Indian authorities for the illegal and unauthorized introduction of GMOs in India through field trials of these crops, bypassing and violating environmental laws, without involving and informing the local authorities and the local public.
Navdanya has also been involved in and leading campaigns against GMOs on an international level. During the WTO
World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade , which commenced in 1948...
Hong Kong Ministerial, Navdanya joined 740 other organizations in presenting their opposition to WTO's attempt to undermine the right of individual countries to take appropriate steps to protect their farmland, environment and consumers from the risks posed by GM foods and crops. In India RFSTE and other concerned groups have demanded that the Government fulfill their obligation towards the Indian farmers, Indian consumers, the environment, biodiversity and sustainable agriculture by imposing a 10 year moratorium on the impending release of GMOs in India.
Biopiracy
RFSTE/ Navdanya started the campaign against biopiracy with the Neem Campaign in 1994 and mobilized 1,00,000 signatures against neem patents and filed a legal opposition against the USDA and WR Grace patent on the fungicidal properties of neemNeem
Azadirachta indica is a tree in the mahogany family Meliaceae. It is one of two species in the genus Azadirachta, and is native to India growing in tropical and semi-tropical regions. Its fruits and seeds are the source of neem oil...
(no. 436257 B1) in the European Patent Office
European Patent Office
The European Patent Office is one of the two organs of the European Patent Organisation , the other being the Administrative Council. The EPO acts as executive body for the Organisation while the Administrative Council acts as its supervisory body as well as, to a limited extent, its legislative...
(EPO) at Munich, Germany.
Along with RFSTE, the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) of Germany and Ms. Magda Alvoet, former Green Member of the European Parliament were party to the challenge. The patent on Neem was revoked in May 2000 and it was reconfirmed on 8 March 2005 when the EPO revoked in entirety the controversial patent, and adjudged that there was “no inventive step” involved in the fungicide patent, thus confirming the ‘prior art’ of the use of Neem.
In 1998, Navdanya started a campaign against Basmati biopiracy (Patent No. 5663484) of a US company RiceTec. On Aug 14th 2001 Navdanya achieved another victory against biopiracy and patent on life when the United States Patent and Trademark Office
United States Patent and Trademark Office
The United States Patent and Trademark Office is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that issues patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registration for product and intellectual property identification.The USPTO is based in Alexandria, Virginia,...
(USPTO) revoked a large section of the patent on Indian Basmati rice by the US corporations RiceTec Inc. These included:
- The generic title of the RiceTec patent No. 5663484, which earlier referred to Basmati rice lines;
- The sweeping and false claims of RiceTec having ‘invented’, traits of rice seeds and plants including plant height, grain length, aroma which are characteristics found in our traditional Basmati varieties
- Claims to general methods of breeding which was also piracy of traditional breeding done by farmers and our scientists (of the 20 original claims only three narrow ones survived).
Navdanya vs. Monsanto
The next major victory against biopiracy for Navdanya came in October 2004 when the European Patent Office in Munich revoked Monsanto’s patent on the Indian variety of wheat “Nap Hal”. This was the third consecutive victory on the IPR front after Neem and Basmati, making it the third consecutive victory. This was made possible under the Campaign against Patent on Life as well as against Biopiracy respectively. MONSANTO, the biggest seed corporation, was assigned a patent (EP 0445929 B1) on wheat on 21 May 2003 by the European Patent Office in Munich under the simple title “plants”. On January 27, 2004 Research Foundation for Science Technology and Ecology (RFSTE) along with Greenpeace and Bharat Krishak Samaj BKS) filed a petition at the European Patent Office (EPO), Munich, challenging the patent rights given to Monsanto on Indian Landrace of wheat, Nap Hal. The patent was revoked in October 2004 and it once again established the fact that the patents on biodiversity, indigenous knowledge and resources are based on biopiracy and there is an urgent need to ban all patents on life and living organisms including biodiversity, genes and cell lines.Through the citizens’ actions, Navdanya has won three biopiracy battles and have thus contributed to the defense of farmers’ rights, indigenous knowledge and biodiversity. Navdanya’s focus on collective, cumulative innovation embodies in indigenous knowledge has created a worldwide movement for the defense of the intellectual rights of communities.