This is the conclusion of a masterclass on this theme taught by Vandana Shiva to students at the University of British Columbia on August 17, 2020. This program also includes a rare bonus-track of a TUC Radio recording of Shivaâs keynote at the Fast Food World conference at UC Berkeley on November 24, 2003.
Before earning her PhD in quantum theory Vandana Shiva had been training in India in the atomic energy commission. She credits the Chipko Movement, where she volunteered, with teaching her about biodiversity. Chipko was a nonviolent ecological movement in India in the 1970s started by rural villagers, mainly women. They were protecting trees and forests slated for government-backed logging by embracing the trees and stopping the chainsaws.
Vandana Shiva gave up a career in physics and returned to her mothers farm. She set up the Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology in her motherâs cowshed in 1997 and became an eloquent spokesperson for the ecological value of traditional farming.
In the last 30 years Vandana Shiva has campaigned against genetic engineering, biotechnology, chemical industrial agriculture, patenting of life and the global rule of the World Trade Organization.
These two segments from Vandana Shivaâs work are meant to inspire a new kind of thinking about food and soil at a time when coming home to basics might bring comfort and inspiration.
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