Vandana Shiva speaking to Presbyterians for Restoring Creation at a conference on water last year.

Photo: Lynne West/CWS

Food, water and corporate control: an interview with Vandana Shiva

February 8, 2006

Church World Service has been addressing hunger and its underlying causes for almost 60 years. Over the past two decades, its CROP WALKs have raised almost $265 million to end hunger, resettle refugees, and for disaster response and long term development.

But hunger and poverty have new allies, according to environmental activist, eco-feminist and physicist Vandana Shiva. Hybrid seeds and genetically modified organisms are vying with drought, war and insect infestations to keep hunger alive. Globalization, unfair trade policies, and corporate power work in favor of the large agribusinesses that make and sell these products.

In 2004, CWS co-sponsored an ecumenical consultation on the negative impact of globalization on people, churches and the environment. The consultation gave rise to a new forum for churches in North America to live out a Biblical vision of the economy of God.

The recipient of many international awards, Shiva is the founder of the New Delhi-based Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology and one of the leaders of the International Forum on Globalization. At a conference co-sponsored by the CWS Education & Advocacy Program last year she told Presbyterians concerned with the environment that privatization and corporate control were endangering the world’s water. Church World Service’s Thomas Abraham asked her what threatened food security today.

Vandana Shiva: The concentration of control is the greatest threat to food security. There are two aspects to food security: security that comes out of production, and security from trading and access systems. A handful of agricultural chemical companies now own 70 to 80 percent of the world’s seed supplies. These companies got their start selling war chemicals. They don’t function like farmers who grow, harvest and replant hundreds of varieties of seeds. Instead, companies like Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill, ConAgra and Monsanto distribute one or two varieties on a very large scale. And they create hybrid seeds that don’t reproduce. These companies have also successfully pushed for legal systems like Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS) and the Agreement on Agriculture that make saving seeds illegal, thus controlling global distribution, trading and marketing of the world food supply. They partner with local traders and money lenders to exploit local inequalities in what I call corporate feudalism. Farmers are in debt worldwide while these companies reap high profits. Some 40,000 farmers in India have committed suicide in the last decade because of this situation.

CWS: What is the relation of these threats and water privatization?

Shiva: The corporate control of food and water comes out of the same paradigm. It’s driven by the same set of industries. The rules of the World Trade Organization and the pressures of the International Monetary Fund are destroying the world’s food supply. Through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the World Bank and the WTO are doing the behest of the five water giants Suez, Vivendi, Bechtel, RWE-Thames and Saur. They would like to see water change from being a part of nature, ecology and culture (especially in India, where religious culture linked to the Ganga and Narmada Rivers) to being part of a water market. They want to force the poor to spend money on what they have had as a right. This will lead to the death of farmers and villagers. Five farmers were killed last June demanding their share of water from the Bisalpur dam which is diverting water from their villages to the city of Jaipur in Rajasthan.

CWS: Is there a viable alternative to the corporate profit-making model, and where is this model having any effect?

Shiva: I have spent the last 18 years creating these alternatives. We do this by saving biodiversity, harvesting seeds, organic farming and ecological agriculture. I started the organic farming program Navdanya to fight Monsanto. The Commission on the Future of Food, which I chair, has put together a manifesto about the food chain. There are movements to conserve water, bring rivers back to life, restore water resources to community control, and use agricultural practices that reduce water use by 70 percent. A worldwide alliance on water was set up in Delhi two years ago. In every society, similar experiments are being tried. The rejection of water privatization in Bolivia and Argentina is a sign of hope, showing that under any condition, people can organize and exercise their power to bring change. These movements are growing worldwide, without any attempt at centralized control, as people realize they are involved in issues of justice and equity. People are saying food and water are fundamental human rights, these are common goods. The issues cut across all parts of the world. And the fact that people are engaging in these movements encourages others.

CWS: Is there any one event that has speeded up corporate control?

Shiva: Nine eleven. It allowed those in corporate power, who create the rules and conditions, to use terrorism to blackmail the world. I started my own work several years ago studying how the Green Revolution led to terrorism in Punjab, India. Nine-eleven signaled the next stage. It could go one of two ways: either the growth of movements that create earth democracy, or terrorism through economic domination and the displacement of people. The second route involves the use of military force to further crush societies. It goes hand in hand with an unraveling ecosphere, already evident in climate change.

CWS: Do faith communities and faith-based organizations have any role in withstanding corporate rule?

Shiva: In the hijacking of food and water, fundamentalists in every faith community have gone hand-in-hand with corporate monopolies. There is a synergy between the two. It’s time for faith communities to work for what they are supposed to work for: protecting our beautiful creation, serving society, and caring compassionately care for one’s neighbor. These goals can be found in the original teachings of all faiths, teachings which led people to become faith communities. There are instances of faith communities standing against corporate control. The movement for Zero Hunger in Brazil was championed by bishops. In India, the fight against the privatization of the Ganga started in 2002 with the people who lived along the river, and those who performed religious rituals. They were the ones who said: “Sacred waters are not for sale.” But it can go either way: faith communities can synergize with justice or with exploitation.

CWS: Apart from writing, campaigning and public speaking, what everyday choices do you make to withstand the rule of the corporation?

Shiva: Everyday choices are what I work for most of my time; I write only when I’m traveling, or waiting in airports. I want farmers to be able to choose what kind of crops to grow, whether to use organic means or toxic chemicals in the fields. For the consumer, the choice may be between buying bottled water and working for public access to water for everyone. I believe consumers are co-producers. By deciding what you eat and drink, you are deciding between an agriculture of peace and an agriculture of war.

CWS: Are growth and development goals that must be pursued at all costs?

Shiva: Growth and development are what biological systems—not markets and economies—do best. Embryos grow, seeds grow. Economic activity is not growth, but extraction and domination. It kills. Development models that displace millions don’t add up to development.