List of food/nature heroes: Vandana Shiva, Michael Pollan, Wendell Berry, Bill McKibben, the list could go on and on. Well, last night, I got to meet one of them- Vandana Shiva! She is an amazing ecofeminist from India who has done absolutely wonderful work and stood up against forces like Monsanto. If I turn out anything like her, I would be ecstatic!
Yesterday I got an email that she was speaking at Western Illinois University and that a group of students and professors were going if people wanted to join. So my friend Emelye and I changed our days schedules inside out and went! We sat 5th row in a huuuuuge lecture hall full of semi-apathetic students and were riveted. She is eloquent and knows SO much about food politics and ACTUAL solutions. She and her organizations have sued Monsanto to keep some GMO varieties out of India, started lots of seed banks to protect biodiversity of India's food crops from extinction, and worked towards a new world food future.
After she spoke, she did a question and answer session. Plenty of questions were obvious ones from people who are somewhat food ignorant (and luckily their eyes were being opened- one man asked if organic meant no pesticides were being used!). Some were pretty excellent. After getting my courage up and literally being pushed by some friends, I got up to the mic and asked her what advice she had for young farmers looking to get into sustainable agriculture in a country that works against us. She said dedication was very important, that young farmers must be passionate. She also suggested that young farmers try to work together to get land, since it is so expensive. Also working and getting experience at an organic farm is good. I got to look one of my personal heroes in the eye and have her speak directly to me!
Luckily I thought to grab my copy of Manifestos on the Future of Food and Seed and bring it with me, so I got it signed afterwards! Hopefully it will be worth millions someday after she heads a worldwide overhaul of our broken food system and becomes a figure like Gandhi. Too bad I would never sell it! Made a few connections with people I talked to, pretty awesome night.
She also talked a bit about farmer suicide in India, which is becoming a growing problem. She spoke about how farmers get into so much debt that they can't pay any of it back, and when representatives of Monsanto or other agribusiness come to seize their farms, they loose their very important connection to their land. They turn to the pesticides that got them there- they drink pesticide to kill themselves. There was a world news article about suicide in India in todays New York Times, but it hardly scratched the surface about what is going on. Hopefully we can bring some light to the real casualties of GMO crops and agribusiness!
