and I on days you know when days
sometimes you have long days and
sometimes you have a bad day at work and
sometimes you have we are really ill I
can’t think of anything more comforting
than my kitty with ghee and the hay and
peppered you agree
and sometimes my curd rice and you know
if if on a weekend I have time I sit and
enjoy my food like meditation and if I
travel to places I explore it through
food so if I go to a place and say I
like something and I pick it up and I
come back I learn it and I make it over
and over again I think my family members
get fed up of me so recently I went to
Bhutan and I picked up from our
neighbors they fit their national dish
em Adachi it is so good I am sure most
of us love our food but I’ve come to
tell you that our food system has been
systematically been broken there are a
handful of corporations control and
majority over 50% of the seeds the
commercial seeds that of handful of
corporations control over three-quarters
of the pesticides in the world and with
this concentration of power comes the
concentration of seeds of pesticides of
patents of data and even innovation and
GMOs are really trying to get a wedge in
this market that the GM industry has
been pushing this as the panacea as the
silver bullet for the last 25 years of
its existence saying that this is the
only technology that will feed us that
will feed the growing population I have
come to tell you that it’s one of the
most controversial technologies
introduced to mankind and like with most
technologies you know that gets redone
in the West that gets rejected by the
north northern countries and finds its
way into southern countries like us into
developing countries like us I’ll give
you the example of nuclear technology
for instance now most of the northern
countries are saying let’s not go ahead
with it we’ve learnt already you’ve
burnt our fingers we know now what is
better and moving more towards renewable
and countries like us we are going on
expanding nuclear how you take the
example of big dams countries like the
u.s. are already blowing up their big
dams and we are going ahead and
continuing to build big dams so it’s
almost like what the West rejects we
accept what the West learns it’s mistake
strahm’s we continue to say no no we
need it right so is the case with GM
technology like I said the GM industry
has been pushing this as the Silver
Bullet as the only solutions the be-all
the end-all for food security for
nutritional security and countries like
India and the developing world say you
know what we will volunteer to be the
technological dumpee edge of the world
we almost seem to take pride in it but
the fact of the matter is that
genetically modified organisms are a
distraction they are a distraction from
food security there is distraction from
nutritional security when you have GM
it’s handing over our food production to
this handful of companies and what
companies know best is profit they don’t
understand ecology but what happens is
that as a result of this is you have
less biodiversity you have more farmers
locked into a system of dependence on
agro chemicals like pesticides so GMOs
are really a distraction from the food
from the food security from the
nutritional security
that can be achieved through ecological
farming and the solutions are already
lying there GMOs
create a system of dependence so I’ll
talk a little more of why I think GM was
very destruction GMOs create a treadmill
of dependence they make the farmers go
to the market to buy the seeds and
before I go on to explain more I’ll talk
about you know if any of you have had
any experience in farming or have family
members maybe your parents maybe your
grandparents some experienced some
relation and you can go and have a
conversation with them and you’ll find
out that seeds were never bought from
the market they were actually saved
after every season they’ve actually
shared with friends they were shared
with family they were shared with
neighbors a farming family never went to
the market to buy the seeds but in the
case of GMOs the farmer has to go and
buy the seeds and then the farmer has to
go and buy the pesticides that go with
it it’s like you know buying your iPhone
you know what I mean some of you I’m
sure have an iPhone and then when you
buy an iPhone and then you lose your
charger you have to go back to the I
store because there’s no other charger
will work or you need a pair of
headphones and you have to go back to
the I store well then you need a convert
and nothing else is going to work you
get the drift right so it’s locking in
this case the farmer into a system of
dependence onto a treadmill where he’s
constantly having to depend on the
market to go back – bye – bye – bye and
if you take the example of GM cotton in
India bt cotton which is the only GM
crop which is permitted in India you’ll
find out that more and more pesticide is
being used and therefore the farmer has
to go to the market
and again for that so I’ll tell you a
little more of the myths that are
promoted contrary to popular belief the
use of pesticides actually shoots up so
what what is common knowledge ease or
what is popular knowledge is that if you
use GM your use or dependence of
pesticides will go down and that’s a
good thing right
and so you’ll say hey maybe we should go
for GM so your pesticide use goes down
but actually that’s far from the truth
if you take the example of bt cotton
again in india you’ll find that over a
period of time the pest develops
resistant to the pesticide that the
plant is excluding so GMOs are developed
in such a way to count only one pest so
that the plant produces pesticide to
deal with only one pest and over a
period of time that best develops
resistance and then you need more
pesticide and then you need to create a
new gene stack so that’s how it works
it’s if I’d use a simplistic example
it’s little bit like having an alcoholic
know where for the first time you will
get high in a little bit of alcohol and
then you need more and more alcohol to
get the same effect so it’s pretty much
like that and when I say what happens in
agriculture when that dependence goes up
you have the creation or the development
or so of super bugs and super weeds and
this is a well documented fact in the
u.s. if you take if you look at the
numbers in the US for instance the num
the amount of pesticide or herbicide
alone since the time GMOs were
introduced in the US has gone up by
three hundred and eighty three million
pounds it’s not gone down it’s gone up
it might give you the impression of
going down first but then eventually
goes up
and one of the other things that is
talked about in the world of GMOs is
that GMOs is the only way to ensure
climate resilience to saline salinity
related issues to floods to droughts and
we all know we all seen climate change
impacts we all sing more droughts we all
sing more floods you all seem more
salinity I mean we don’t experience with
ourselves but you heard of it at the
farming in and we are made to believe
that GMOs in agriculture are the only
way to counter that or the only way to
deal with these shocks with these
climate related shocks but the fact of
the matter is as of today there are to
deal with those climate related shock
it’s also a fact that conventional
breeding technologies like
marker-assisted selection or mas are
already in the market and are already
helping farmers deal with all these
situations of floods droughts salinity
all of those situations so what happened
what is the real solution when you have
GM crops that can only operate in
monocultures GM crops cannot work in a
diversity GM crops only work in a
monoculture and monocultures by nature
are susceptible they are susceptible to
viral attacks they are susceptible to
diseases they are susceptible to pests
attacks to climate shocks name it
because it’s simple if all of us in this
room had the same immunity and say they
were a viral attack say they were a
viral attack and we didn’t have the
immunity to deal with it there’s a
possibility that this entire room would
be wiped out right but if you have a
diversity if all of us at the varying
then maybe some people would fall sick
and some people wouldn’t
so is diversity like that it’s
the diversity is so beautiful it adds
resilience to all survival right and
biodiversity
therefore in agriculture becomes the key
to ensuring or it becomes the only
insurance against climate change if I
were to say so biodiversity is the only
insurance against climate change and
India has full Loftis biodiversity it’s
replete with this biodiversity and did
you know that India just if I take the
example of rice there were over 10,000
varieties of rice in India can you even
imagine that I know a handful like the
pony when I come to this part of the
country or the gun – Allah if I go to
West Bengal or the black rice if I go to
money poor but there were 10,000
varieties only of rice and India or Asia
is the biodiversity hub not only a
forest but also agriculture and this
biodiversity can actually come to our
rescue so one of the key things where
I’m saying all these solutions exist you
will still have corporations you’ll
still have sometimes government’s make
you believe that you know we are a
growing population and we need to fill
feed this growing population how do we
do that how do we do that GMOs is the
only long-term solution but I want to
put it in a little bit of a context in
the context of the actual food
production as of today so did you know
that 75% of the food that is produced
today is actually meant for livestock or
biofuels as always ingredients for the
junk food industry and only 25% or a
quarter of what is produced is directly
meant for direct human consumption
it’s a well-recognized fact it’s not
unknown completely even the UN’s FAO
will talk about the fact that over 30%
of the food that we produce today is
wasted in the Western world it’s wasted
at the consumer in too many spots on the
sample this pan looks too blemished for
me let’s pin it in the developing world
most of it is lost because of four
storage facilities and distribution
losses so what about that so does it
mean actually that if we produce more
food more people would be fed not
necessary we actually already producing
more enough food for everybody today
enough nutritious food for everybody
today and even enough for a foreseeable
increase in population the only way we
can ensure best guarantee for people to
ensure they have access to nutritional
food and healthy food is to ensure
availability is to ensure of
affordability of a diverse and
unprocessed food basket from the from
the science perspective ecological
agriculture modeling the ecological
agricultural model has already been
recognized as the best model to ensure
food and nutritional security for a
growing population so 400 scientists the
best scientist from across the world
came together in the United Nations
funded I double-a STD study and they
said this is the best model small and
marginal farmers producing diverse food
we don’t need large monocultures we
don’t need everybody producing petain
doors we don’t need everybody producing
corn and wheat we need diversity the
more the diversity the more the
nutrition I’m sure you’ll agree if I
tell you that I can feed you a sack of
potatoes every day and that’s not going
to ensure nutritional security will it
strong from the markets perspective it’s
an it’s something that you must be free
observing in your day to day life that
there’s no organic food made available
in the market there’s more demand for
organic food there’s more demand for
ecologically grown food why because
people are becoming increasingly aware
of what they want on their plate if I
were to take the example of us alone the
u.s. organic market stood at 43 billion
in the year 2015 and it it’s growing
rapidly every year in every country so
far GE has not lived up to any of the
promises that the industry has made
that’s a fact and if we have to feed the
world we have to adopt ecological
agriculture understanding the human the
fundamental human right is the right to
food so it is possible to imagine a
world where we grow more locally where
we grow without agro chemicals it is
possible that our farmers are actually
compensated fairly and that all of us
have abundant and healthy food it’s not
a dream in many pockets of the world
this model this model which involves
moving away from subsistence and moving
away from the extremely destructive
industrial farming towards a more
holistic model it is possible that you
have more knowledge sharing that you use
local seeds that do you have more
diversity where you have a system
approach where you know your trees will
attract the birds that we eats the
insects and so on and so forth and that
love we owe ourselves thank you
[Applause]
sometimes you have long days and
sometimes you have a bad day at work and
sometimes you have we are really ill I
can’t think of anything more comforting
than my kitty with ghee and the hay and
peppered you agree
and sometimes my curd rice and you know
if if on a weekend I have time I sit and
enjoy my food like meditation and if I
travel to places I explore it through
food so if I go to a place and say I
like something and I pick it up and I
come back I learn it and I make it over
and over again I think my family members
get fed up of me so recently I went to
Bhutan and I picked up from our
neighbors they fit their national dish
em Adachi it is so good I am sure most
of us love our food but I’ve come to
tell you that our food system has been
systematically been broken there are a
handful of corporations control and
majority over 50% of the seeds the
commercial seeds that of handful of
corporations control over three-quarters
of the pesticides in the world and with
this concentration of power comes the
concentration of seeds of pesticides of
patents of data and even innovation and
GMOs are really trying to get a wedge in
this market that the GM industry has
been pushing this as the panacea as the
silver bullet for the last 25 years of
its existence saying that this is the
only technology that will feed us that
will feed the growing population I have
come to tell you that it’s one of the
most controversial technologies
introduced to mankind and like with most
technologies you know that gets redone
in the West that gets rejected by the
north northern countries and finds its
way into southern countries like us into
developing countries like us I’ll give
you the example of nuclear technology
for instance now most of the northern
countries are saying let’s not go ahead
with it we’ve learnt already you’ve
burnt our fingers we know now what is
better and moving more towards renewable
and countries like us we are going on
expanding nuclear how you take the
example of big dams countries like the
u.s. are already blowing up their big
dams and we are going ahead and
continuing to build big dams so it’s
almost like what the West rejects we
accept what the West learns it’s mistake
strahm’s we continue to say no no we
need it right so is the case with GM
technology like I said the GM industry
has been pushing this as the Silver
Bullet as the only solutions the be-all
the end-all for food security for
nutritional security and countries like
India and the developing world say you
know what we will volunteer to be the
technological dumpee edge of the world
we almost seem to take pride in it but
the fact of the matter is that
genetically modified organisms are a
distraction they are a distraction from
food security there is distraction from
nutritional security when you have GM
it’s handing over our food production to
this handful of companies and what
companies know best is profit they don’t
understand ecology but what happens is
that as a result of this is you have
less biodiversity you have more farmers
locked into a system of dependence on
agro chemicals like pesticides so GMOs
are really a distraction from the food
from the food security from the
nutritional security
that can be achieved through ecological
farming and the solutions are already
lying there GMOs
create a system of dependence so I’ll
talk a little more of why I think GM was
very destruction GMOs create a treadmill
of dependence they make the farmers go
to the market to buy the seeds and
before I go on to explain more I’ll talk
about you know if any of you have had
any experience in farming or have family
members maybe your parents maybe your
grandparents some experienced some
relation and you can go and have a
conversation with them and you’ll find
out that seeds were never bought from
the market they were actually saved
after every season they’ve actually
shared with friends they were shared
with family they were shared with
neighbors a farming family never went to
the market to buy the seeds but in the
case of GMOs the farmer has to go and
buy the seeds and then the farmer has to
go and buy the pesticides that go with
it it’s like you know buying your iPhone
you know what I mean some of you I’m
sure have an iPhone and then when you
buy an iPhone and then you lose your
charger you have to go back to the I
store because there’s no other charger
will work or you need a pair of
headphones and you have to go back to
the I store well then you need a convert
and nothing else is going to work you
get the drift right so it’s locking in
this case the farmer into a system of
dependence onto a treadmill where he’s
constantly having to depend on the
market to go back – bye – bye – bye and
if you take the example of GM cotton in
India bt cotton which is the only GM
crop which is permitted in India you’ll
find out that more and more pesticide is
being used and therefore the farmer has
to go to the market
and again for that so I’ll tell you a
little more of the myths that are
promoted contrary to popular belief the
use of pesticides actually shoots up so
what what is common knowledge ease or
what is popular knowledge is that if you
use GM your use or dependence of
pesticides will go down and that’s a
good thing right
and so you’ll say hey maybe we should go
for GM so your pesticide use goes down
but actually that’s far from the truth
if you take the example of bt cotton
again in india you’ll find that over a
period of time the pest develops
resistant to the pesticide that the
plant is excluding so GMOs are developed
in such a way to count only one pest so
that the plant produces pesticide to
deal with only one pest and over a
period of time that best develops
resistance and then you need more
pesticide and then you need to create a
new gene stack so that’s how it works
it’s if I’d use a simplistic example
it’s little bit like having an alcoholic
know where for the first time you will
get high in a little bit of alcohol and
then you need more and more alcohol to
get the same effect so it’s pretty much
like that and when I say what happens in
agriculture when that dependence goes up
you have the creation or the development
or so of super bugs and super weeds and
this is a well documented fact in the
u.s. if you take if you look at the
numbers in the US for instance the num
the amount of pesticide or herbicide
alone since the time GMOs were
introduced in the US has gone up by
three hundred and eighty three million
pounds it’s not gone down it’s gone up
it might give you the impression of
going down first but then eventually
goes up
and one of the other things that is
talked about in the world of GMOs is
that GMOs is the only way to ensure
climate resilience to saline salinity
related issues to floods to droughts and
we all know we all seen climate change
impacts we all sing more droughts we all
sing more floods you all seem more
salinity I mean we don’t experience with
ourselves but you heard of it at the
farming in and we are made to believe
that GMOs in agriculture are the only
way to counter that or the only way to
deal with these shocks with these
climate related shocks but the fact of
the matter is as of today there are to
deal with those climate related shock
it’s also a fact that conventional
breeding technologies like
marker-assisted selection or mas are
already in the market and are already
helping farmers deal with all these
situations of floods droughts salinity
all of those situations so what happened
what is the real solution when you have
GM crops that can only operate in
monocultures GM crops cannot work in a
diversity GM crops only work in a
monoculture and monocultures by nature
are susceptible they are susceptible to
viral attacks they are susceptible to
diseases they are susceptible to pests
attacks to climate shocks name it
because it’s simple if all of us in this
room had the same immunity and say they
were a viral attack say they were a
viral attack and we didn’t have the
immunity to deal with it there’s a
possibility that this entire room would
be wiped out right but if you have a
diversity if all of us at the varying
then maybe some people would fall sick
and some people wouldn’t
so is diversity like that it’s
the diversity is so beautiful it adds
resilience to all survival right and
biodiversity
therefore in agriculture becomes the key
to ensuring or it becomes the only
insurance against climate change if I
were to say so biodiversity is the only
insurance against climate change and
India has full Loftis biodiversity it’s
replete with this biodiversity and did
you know that India just if I take the
example of rice there were over 10,000
varieties of rice in India can you even
imagine that I know a handful like the
pony when I come to this part of the
country or the gun – Allah if I go to
West Bengal or the black rice if I go to
money poor but there were 10,000
varieties only of rice and India or Asia
is the biodiversity hub not only a
forest but also agriculture and this
biodiversity can actually come to our
rescue so one of the key things where
I’m saying all these solutions exist you
will still have corporations you’ll
still have sometimes government’s make
you believe that you know we are a
growing population and we need to fill
feed this growing population how do we
do that how do we do that GMOs is the
only long-term solution but I want to
put it in a little bit of a context in
the context of the actual food
production as of today so did you know
that 75% of the food that is produced
today is actually meant for livestock or
biofuels as always ingredients for the
junk food industry and only 25% or a
quarter of what is produced is directly
meant for direct human consumption
it’s a well-recognized fact it’s not
unknown completely even the UN’s FAO
will talk about the fact that over 30%
of the food that we produce today is
wasted in the Western world it’s wasted
at the consumer in too many spots on the
sample this pan looks too blemished for
me let’s pin it in the developing world
most of it is lost because of four
storage facilities and distribution
losses so what about that so does it
mean actually that if we produce more
food more people would be fed not
necessary we actually already producing
more enough food for everybody today
enough nutritious food for everybody
today and even enough for a foreseeable
increase in population the only way we
can ensure best guarantee for people to
ensure they have access to nutritional
food and healthy food is to ensure
availability is to ensure of
affordability of a diverse and
unprocessed food basket from the from
the science perspective ecological
agriculture modeling the ecological
agricultural model has already been
recognized as the best model to ensure
food and nutritional security for a
growing population so 400 scientists the
best scientist from across the world
came together in the United Nations
funded I double-a STD study and they
said this is the best model small and
marginal farmers producing diverse food
we don’t need large monocultures we
don’t need everybody producing petain
doors we don’t need everybody producing
corn and wheat we need diversity the
more the diversity the more the
nutrition I’m sure you’ll agree if I
tell you that I can feed you a sack of
potatoes every day and that’s not going
to ensure nutritional security will it
strong from the markets perspective it’s
an it’s something that you must be free
observing in your day to day life that
there’s no organic food made available
in the market there’s more demand for
organic food there’s more demand for
ecologically grown food why because
people are becoming increasingly aware
of what they want on their plate if I
were to take the example of us alone the
u.s. organic market stood at 43 billion
in the year 2015 and it it’s growing
rapidly every year in every country so
far GE has not lived up to any of the
promises that the industry has made
that’s a fact and if we have to feed the
world we have to adopt ecological
agriculture understanding the human the
fundamental human right is the right to
food so it is possible to imagine a
world where we grow more locally where
we grow without agro chemicals it is
possible that our farmers are actually
compensated fairly and that all of us
have abundant and healthy food it’s not
a dream in many pockets of the world
this model this model which involves
moving away from subsistence and moving
away from the extremely destructive
industrial farming towards a more
holistic model it is possible that you
have more knowledge sharing that you use
local seeds that do you have more
diversity where you have a system
approach where you know your trees will
attract the birds that we eats the
insects and so on and so forth and that
love we owe ourselves thank you
[Applause]
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