Renowned physicist warns of unseen dangers in farming technique: 'Single biggest destructive force on the planet today'

An initiative might appear to be "green," but trouble could be lurking — a lesson that Indian physicist and social advocate Vandana Shiva knows all too well.

When Shiva returned to her childhood home for a visit, she discovered that her favorite forest had been razed and a nearby stream drained for an apple orchard. The experience sparked her interest in conservation, leading to the 1982 founding of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology — an organization devoted to sustainable agriculture.

"Food is a weapon. When you sell real weapons, you control armies. When you control food, you control society. But when you control seeds, you control life on Earth," Shiva says in her feature-length documentary The Seeds of Vandana Shiva, referring to industrial farming as the "single biggest destructive force on the planet today."

As Encyclopædia Britannica explains, Shiva may be most renowned for her work opposing Asia's Green Revolution, a well-meaning initiative in the 1960s to increase food production in less-developed countries.

However, Shiva argued that the revolution's tactics were more harmful than helpful, increasing the use of toxic pesticides and polluting fertilizers while reducing indigenous seed biodiversity. Moreover, farmers became dependent on chemical solutions, which raised their operating costs.

And with rising global temperatures creating new agricultural challenges, including more intense extreme weather, Shiva believed that focusing solely on industrial, nonnative monoculture crops was dangerous, leaving the world vulnerable to food shortages and threatening the wellspring of knowledge associated with cultural diversity.

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To combat this, the RFSTE founded seed banks across India in the 1990s as part of its Nine Seeds project, teaching farmers about sustainable agriculture, which incorporates practices that improve soil and ecosystem health, protect against erosion, and reduce the need for expensive chemicals.

Shiva has also authored numerous books addressing corporate plundering of poorer countries, the potential pitfalls of seed biodiversity loss related to genetically modified crops, and proposing the development of innovative solutions as in Globalization's New Wars: Seed, Water, and Life Forms, per Britannica.

"We will continue to create a new world — seed by seed, person by person, community by community — until this planet is embraced in a circle of resurgent life and resurgent love," Shiva says of her mission in a statement published by documentary maker Sacred Ecology.

What is the biggest reason you don't grow food at home?

Not enough time ⏳