Poison Seed

Vanada Shiva is my hero. I went to seek her talk four years ago at UW just to fulfill an assignment for my Introduction to Peace and Conflict course. I read a short description of the talk and thought it might be interesting and then I roped my dad into coming with me because I was too shy to show up by myself. Never would I have expected to enjoy it so much. Shiva is the most passionate woman I know, incredibly intelligent and working for an amazing cause. It's tragic to see that all these years later, she's still telling the same story (in the video) as if the situation in India is unchanged.

This post is called Poison Seed as an homage to Blood Diamond. Many parallels can be drawn between the two stories as they are both cases of the rich unknowingly, uncaringly, or helplessly destroying lives of the poor. The food industry is increasingly worrisome, and I am beginning to feel very skeptical about all the ways I can feed myself. If what I eat wasn't ladled with chemicals, it probably still poisoned locals where regulations are more lax for the national market. It's also possible, as Shiva explains, that it forced peasants into bankruptcy and demolished local biodiversity and livelihoods.

BBC News

I recently did a presentation loosely based on the findings from this article: How much does agriculture depend on pollinators? It's worrisome how pollinators are in decline and how many crops depend on them to be fertilized. In the absence of pollinators (due to too much pesticide use and loss of habitat, for instance) much larger areas of cultivation will be required to produce the same yields as before, which means more deforestation which in turn destroys pollinator habitat. Developing countries are more vulnerable than developed ones as they are growing more highly pollinator-dependent crops, responding to rising demand from richer countries. The sad thing is that they are losing traditional seeds that would be resilient to less pollinators. An important issue in India is to promote not only the survival of many varieties of the main crops (wheat and rice) but also to keep alive other food crops which have been not subject to “Green Revolution” seed substitution – like pearl millet, ramdana and sorghum, and also pulses in general (Martinez-Alier, 2002). Pulses and grasses in general self-pollinate or only need wind, therefore keeping these crops alive is important to withstand future changes where pollinators may not exist.

Source

Pollinators are involved in so many complex interrelationships that we might not necessarily think of.

Paddy fields and their surroundings in India contain algae, Azolla, insects, fish, frogs, crabs, birds and other creatures, weeds and trees, all living in webs of interdependence. As long as this “micro-ecosystem” is not interfered with, the natural fertilizing and insect control processes enable a paddy field to yield steadily for thousands of years. Fish eat small aquatic pollinators and insects, including mosquitos and their larvae and other pests. Their droppings provide instant fertilizer. There are about 80 species of insect parasites and predators in rice fields. A large variety of birds also live and feed on paddy field insects. (Sinha, 1997)

Image source

A way of protecting pollinators would be by encouraging marigold crops.

For control of termites, marigolds (Tagets erecta) are often grown. The roots of marigold plants exude a chemical identified as “alpha-terthienyl” which kills the root-feeding namatodes and termites. The marigold flower provides the secondary products of the farm. Marigolds also attract honey bees. This facilitates cross-pollination of other crops such as monoecious plants like watermelon and other cucurbits. They grow better when marigolds are present (Sinha, 1997).

Here's a great video showing the variety colourful food in India and the incredible amount of people, noises, landscapes and movement that is there. Visiting this country must be insanely overwhelming.

French blogger the Cherry Blossom Girl has some inspiring photos from her trip to India, as you can see below.