Pensiamento Fantastico: The Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply

Vandana Shiva, the world-renowned activist and ecofeminist writer is an award-winning writer on issues related to women’s rights,. globalisation and the environment. She has written several books such as Making Peace With The Earth, Biopiracy: The Plunder Of Nature and Knowledge, Monocultures of the Mind, Staying Alive, Water Wars, Patents: Myths and Reality and The Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply. 

In her book, The Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply (2000), she describes the impact of globalised corporate agriculture on the small scale industries, farmers and the quality of food that we consume. In her enlightening book on some of the trends in food supply, she throws light on many of the problems faced by the common people in India such as stealing of the food produced in the country. 

Some of the issues discussed in the book are genetically engineered seeds, the controversy on cattle meat, the unethical ways of shrimp farming and commercial agriculture. She points out that the widespread conversion of land for food crops  into land for commercial crops has managed to wreck nature and also people who are dependent on these food crops. Though there is an increase in revenue, it is counterbalanced by a large-scale and long term damage to the ecosystems and their capacity to conserve soil and water. This kind of economic growth deprives forest communities of their sources of food, fodder, fuel. fibre, medicine and security from floods and drought. 

Vandana Shiva condemns WTO’s Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement that makes indigenous seed-saving and seed-sharing a crime. She founded Navdanya, an NGO that promotes biological diversity and organic farming after learning more about the ways in which genetic engineering and patenting was destroying the local varieties of food. This organisation has thousands of members and several seedbanks across the country to conserve biodiversity, practise chemical-free agriculture and to save seeds. 

The most important issue that she deals with in her book is about her struggle to fight the multinational edible oil companies and their plan to completely replace the traditional edible oils The Oils produced in the local mills were replaced by cheap imported oils resulting in the destruction of the livelihoods of the local people. 

One central theme in The Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply is the need to have food that is free from genetically engineering and addition of chemicals through fertilizers. She emphasizes how it is the responsibility of the individual to ensure that the food we eat is safe, accessible and culturally appropriate and at the same time not at the cost of robbing the livelihoods of people dependent on traditional modes of food production. 

 

Pic: www.navdanya.org

 

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can  apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.

Pensiamento Fantastico: Agatha Christie

"An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her." This was uttered by none other than Dame Agatha Christie whose second-husband was incidentally the world famous archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan. 

Reading detective fiction has been one of my favourite pastimes since childhood. It started with Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries and has progressed to Paul Doherty’s historical thrillers. Many a time, I have read the same books again and again because I have forgotten the story within an year or two. Among these books Agatha Christie’s works stand first and foremost. 

When I look at the titles, they look familiar and though I may remember some of the storylines very vaguely, I can re-read most of her books (except a few haunting ones)  just because of the fact that they are so readable and so forgettable. 

Most of the time what I do is to read the blurb just to see if it rings a bell. If it does, the book must still be vivid. Otherwise, it usually only three or four of concentrated reading to finish a novel and the blessing is the kind of intellectual stimulation at the end of it. 

The feeling can be compared to that of putting together a jigsaw puzzle and watch it fall together in a kind of “aha” moment. This is not just my opinion, as only recently I read the historian Romila Thapar’s recommendation to read Agatha Christie mysteries to enhance gestalt thinking. 

A few of her mysteries are so haunting that I don’t even need to read the blurb to know the storyline.  For instance, I find it impossible to  forget At Bertram’s Hotel, which is about a nightmarish world where some very innocent people are framed for crimes they have not committed and the police recognizes a gang of lookalikes who manage to get away with it. It has Miss Jane Marple as the detective and she is of the view that human life everywhere the same as in her village of St. Mary Mead. 

Most of the good reads have Hercule Poirot, the Belgian as the detective. He is described as short, with his head the shape of an egg, moustache always well-trimmed and shining, and with good manners. He is shown as obsessed about neatness and order, be it solving the case or his attire. 

What I still remember from childhood is that reading was mostly an accompaniment to meals as these books were so un-put-downable. Even now there is this fascination for reading a Poirot with a hot mug of steaming coffee and something really good to eat. Enjoy your reading, mon ami! 

 This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can  apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.