Jakarta, Ekuatorial – The seed is the starting point of a food system. When the seed is ruled by some group, then the food system will be controlled by that group. This was disclosed by Vandana Shiva, an eco-feminists, philosophers, writers, scientists and activists of the world from India at a public lecture entitled “Our Seed Our Future” at the University of Indonesia’s campus, Depok (18\/8).<\/p>\n
Seed sovereignty becomes very important because up to now the seeds are monopolized by a few multinational companies. The impact is farmers having difficulties in buying and developing seeds, food prices rise, the difficulty to access healthy and safety food, global warming due to industrial agriculture system, the increase in the number of hunger, agrarian conflict, up to the loss of bio-diversity.<\/p>\n
Companies such as Monsanto according to Shiva is one of the world’s largest seed monopoly. This is because these companies make seed patent, seed monopoly, and bio-piracy genetic engineering, and make sterile seed that can’t be renewed. Seed monopoly by Monsanto has impaired more than 250 thousand farmers in India.<\/p>\n
In Indonesia also had case of farmers who developed his own corn seed then went to jail because involved in patent over that seed by the company. That case makes farmers become wary, so they now prefer to buy seeds, although expensive.<\/p>\n
Shiva explained that pesticide is similar to killer gas, only its concentration lowered so that it doesn’t give impacts directly for human. In fact, pesticides do not control pest, but they even can create pest resistant to pesticides.<\/p>\n
Hidden cost or invisible result due to pesticide use, among others, is the social effects on society, the environmental effects and effects on other species. “Other effects of pesticide on other species such as the poisoning of domestic animals, wild, fish, bird, honeybee and other pollinators,” said women who received an environmental hero from TIMES Magazine in 2003.<\/p>\n
She mentioned, “The case in India due to the massive use of pesticides, honeybee as pollinator disappear up to 75%.” Due to the effects of pesticides that more harmful, she recommended the use of natural predators for pest.<\/p>\n
Shiva said that organic farming principled on diversity and argo-ecology is the only agricultural method is the most sustainable in controlling pest.<\/p>\n
Further, she explained that monoculture systems or just one type of only one type of crop farming is a way of farming that isn’t good, because it is very vulnerable to pest, in contrast to polyculture. “With polyculture systems can also be more resistant to climate change,” she said.<\/p>\n
She stressed that the monoculture is a system that does not pay attention to biological diversity. Thus, monoculture can damage the environment. Besides, monoculture system also susceptible to monopoly and the damage intensification.<\/p>\n
She recounted her success in creating food sovereignty by building self-reliance of farmers in her country, India. There she successfully planted 7 to 12 different types on one farm for maintaining biodiversity. From there, she also managed to impart knowledge to the community and build food security. Januar Hakam.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jakarta, Ekuatorial – The seed is the starting point of a food system. When the seed is ruled by some group, then the food system will be controlled by that group. This was disclosed by Vandana Shiva, an eco-feminists, philosophers, writers, scientists and activists of the world from India at a public lecture entitled “Our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2020,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3948,4003],"tags":[],"partner":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-63492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-java","category-kalimantan-en"],"yoast_head":"\n