Dr. Vandana Shiva, feminist ecologist and activist has spent over twenty years studying food systems. Her research work includes current ecological, political and economic impact on agriculture and food business. Here she discusses the agricultural systems largely responsible for hunger and malnutrition.

The conventional belief about the Green Revolution, industrial, chemical intensive farming, and bioengineered agriculture is that they are by far more efficient methods of food production compared to traditional and organic methods. Dr. Vandana Shiva's over 20 year research in modern agriculture shows to the contrary. She says, "In the name of providing more food there has actually been the creation of hunger. It is not only the creation of hunger for those who do not have access to food, but also for those who are not getting access to nutrition and nourishment. The best example of this is the crisis of obesity in affluent countries. Obesity is yet another form of malnutrition. It is a deprivation of not having the right food."

Green Revolution farming techniques were first introduced in India in the 1960s in Punjab by the Ford and Rockerfeller Foundations with approval from the Indian government. Agro-chemicals, new varieties of seeds, foreign breeds of cattle, heavy machinery and tractors replaced Punjab's traditional systems of agriculture, native seed varieties and cattle. The promise was to spread prosperity and thereby peace. Instead by the late seventies short-sighted agricultural schemes in the Punjab spread civil war and terrorism. Punjab, says Dr. Shiva now has "diseased soils, pest-infested crops, waterlogged deserts and indebted and discontented farmers. Instead of peace, Punjab inherited conflict and violence."

The Green Revolution had more to do with the marketing and use of chemicals used in the World War then food plenty. It took the Rockerfeller Foundation 20 years of post World War ll. research to design appropriate crops to respond to those chemicals.

Dr. Norman Borlaug's dwarf varieties also referred to as miracle seeds or high yielding varieties of wheat were the main green revolution crops. Naming them high yielding varieties was a misnomer. Dr. Shiva points, instead they should be called: "high responsive varieties. Responsive to chemicals." A lesser known detail about Dr. Borlaug's miracle seeds, according to Dr. Shiva is: "of the thousands of varieties bred only three were eventually used in the green revolution. Indeed, the food supply of millions has been precariously perched on Dr. Borlaug's narrow and alien genetic base."

Both the Green Revolution and traditional wheat varieties produce the same amount of biomass. Their difference lies in what is known as partitioning. In Green Revolution varieties there is more in the grain and less in the straw. In traditional varieties it is the opposite. Farmers using the traditional varieties also provide fodder for animals, whereas with the Green Revolution plants, farmers are forced to grow fodder separately. However since the Green Revolution wheat varieties produce more grain they are considered superior, forgetting that they barely provide any fodder for the farm animals.

The hype that modern agricultural method is intensive and needs less space and organic and ecological systems need more space gives the image that the former is somehow more productive. Yet, if we examine plant density, diversity and out-put, a biodiverse field produces more whereas the monoculture field using synthetic chemicals produces less biomass and biodiversity.

A biodiverse field will have less yield of individual crops as opposed to monoculture field yields of that monoculture crop. However, it has less to do with superior technology of plant production and more to do with its population. A fair comparison would be to take a biodiverse farm and a monoculture farm and calculate the total output. Dr. Shiva points: "this is where the whole myth of producing more food and solving the hunger and nutrition problem starts through a system that has actually created hunger."

Studies done for FAO by independent scholars such as the American anthropologist Francisca Bray and Indian economist Amartya Sen show that smaller, biodiverse farms have higher productivity and returns. The only difference between biodiverse and monoculture farms is in the profits. The higher profits from Green Revolution agriculture has more to do with agricultural subsidies and a distortion of the economic system rather than food production. Dr. Shiva's research in the Punjab shows that with the extensive cultivation of rice and wheat, Punjab has lost its cereals, pulses and oil seeds. India now imports her pulses from Canada and Australia.

Industrial farming being chemical driven requires intensive irrigation and investments in expensive dams. Chemical agriculture reduces water to being primarily a carrier of chemicals to the plants. Compared with organic plant varieties Green Revolution varieties use ten times more water for the same amount of food production. Yet advocates of industrial agriculture do not calculate water as input. They also overlook biodiversity as output. Instead they conveniently calculate out put as single yield; and labor as input.

Since labor is seen as input any technology that displaces people by definition becomes productive. Labor saving technology in agro business is computed as higher food productivity. Dr Shiva points: "This reasoning is absurd, because they are displacing work and getting rid of people's livelihoods. When you get rid of their livelihood you are either getting rid of their capacity to produce or have access to food. In either case you are producing hunger."

According to Dr. Shiva, "hunger is created first by getting rid of people's livelihood with mis-guided view points of productivity. It is also created by hiding the lost nutrients in the biodiversity." Today everyone complains of iron , vitamin A and other food deficiencies.

Indigenous farms did not have deficiencies in vitamins and trace elements. The loss of biodiversity, and the nutrient deficient soils are direct results of chemical, monoculture farming. Dr. Shiva: "Organic food can have hundred and fifty percent more trace elements and micro nutrients just by the method of growing the food. Plant trace elements helps our metabolism to deal with problems of malnourishment and obesity. It is recognized that problems from obesity is a bigger epidemic then tobacco smoking. Indeed food itself has become the biggest hazard under industrial production systems."

Currently corporate scientists propose dealing with world hunger and malnutrition through the second green revolution: genetic engineering. Ninety three percent of all genetically engineered crops planted anywhere in the world are sold by the multi-national, Monsanto. The company's most profitable product is a herbicide called Roundup. Coincidentally, Monsanto's first generation of genetically engineered crops were designed to be resistant to the company's herbicide, Roundup.

Monsanto's second generation genetically engineered crops are called BT crops. BT, Bacillus Thuringiensis, is a bacteria in the soil, toxic to some species of plant pests in its natural crystalline form. Organic farmers use this bacterium, in its natural state, to ward of certain plant pests. The bacterium's gene once isolated and injected into plants, loses its crystalline form yet maintains its toxicity. The loss of the bacterium's crystalline nature makes it more digestible to a wider range of species, thus making BT crops a toxic hazard to a large number of insect species. One can easily deduce the effects BT crops may have on the food value of the plant and on human health.

The next generation of genetically engineered crops which are also called public relations crops are aimed at improving nutritional content.. Genetically engineered Golden Rice for example will offer 30 micrograms of Vitamin A equivalent in 100 gms of rice. Certain greens in India such as Chenopodium album, Coriander, Curry leaves have 1400 micrograms of Vitamin A for the same measurement as Golden Rice. Tests done by Dr. Shiva's foundation show that Indian red rice has more Vitamin A in it then the Golden Rice. Yet Monsanto declares that within ten years (with billions of dollars of expenditure and with eighty patents linked to different elements of designing the rice) they will offer the starving millions a superior and nutritious rice option.

Today, the high price and risks of the Green Revolution are self evident. The dangers of genetically engineered plants and food are lesser known. "Basically, Dr. Shiva advises, "whenever this idea is spread that through genetic engineering we are going to get something, or that Monsanto is giving us a new improved rice or wheat variety, we just need to do one thing, expand our gaze and look at biodiversity and traditional knowledge and on the basis of that asses whether the promises of more and better really hold. Are we really getting more nutrition, more output and more food?"

------------------------------------

Kennebunkport resident, Ms. Dixit-Kubiak is an independent health/environment researcher, yoga teacher, shiatsu therapist, and program coordinator for Big Medicine's Eco-Holistic Health Exchanges. Her email is metamed@nancho.net.