Navdanya Wrap-up

So the last time that I posted, I was smack in the middle of the two weeks spent on the Bija Vidyapeeth/Navdanya organic farm... and the second half was just as amazing as the first! When Satish Kumar left us, we were joined by Samdhong Rimpoche (some people who couldnt pronounce his name referred to him as Samsung Ricochet... ahh irony)! He arrived in his long flowing Buddhist robes and his lectures were wonderful but quite slow as his English is not perfect. He had a lot of wonderful thoughts and, unlike many people who are trying to speak a 'foreign' language, he was able to express them incredibly eloquently and was really a joy to listen to! It was a bit of a shock after Satish who spoke perfect English and lectured in a very different style!

We were also joined by Dr. Vandana Shiva herself, the founder of Navdanya and one of the most active and amazing figures of the environmental and seed-saving movement in India! She is a passionately aggressive, all-about-business kind of woman who really knows how to motivate and move the masses... which is great because she is constantly organizing Satyagrahas (Gandhian nonviolent resistance) all over the country against big agribusiness, the government, and really anyone who gets in her way of saving farmers, land, water, and seeds! Her lectures were fluid and information-packed and she really knows her facts. She made me want to stay on at Navdanya and join her cause (i havent given that idea up yet...) or at the very least to become more involved in the environmental politics at home. Some of the anecdotes that she used to illustrate her points were so relevant and astonishing, making me (and others) realize what was going on behind the scenes that we just weren't getting the full story on. She is a huge defender of biodiversity and has set up an amazing seed bank on the Navdanya farm where they now have collected over 400 indigenous varieties of rice, and many more of wheats, pulses, etc. They distribute these seeds to local farmers (and nonlocals through rural outreach programs) and teach them about not using pesticides and resisting the takeover by Monsanto and other genetically modified seed salesmen. This program was essentially begun after the mass farmer suicides in the 90s - Monsanto was coming to farms all over India and showing the farmers information about how their seeds had incredibly high yields [this data was mostly taken from a laboratory setup where the air temperature, water fall, etc. is all carefully controlled] and then offering to replace all of the farmers seeds for FREE with their own. For the first year, the new seeds were very fruitful and the farmers were thrilled! Little did they know that the crop would begin to deplete the soil, need fertilizer and chemical pesticides [unforeseen expenses], and the yield would drop dramatically after the first year. The worst part of this whole plot, however, is that the new seeds are hybrids = genetically modified seeds that Monsanto made so that they do not regenerate! Basically the natural life cycle of the seeds is completely messed up and they do not provide the farmer with anything to sow for the next crop! This is where Monsanto comes in a SELLS the new seeds again, year after year, to the impoverished farmers and this was the root of the farmer suicides. Needless to say, this is only part of the story but Vandana got to work immediately and organized against this massive agricultural plot.

A few other highlights of the second week of Navdanya were:
1. I learned how to crochet from a friend on the farm and made a hat for my recently bald head! Now im making hats [or tuks (sp?) in Canadian] on all my train and bus rides which makes for great conversations with interested Indians.

2. We took a half day trip to a Tibetan enclave near the farm outside of Dehradun. We walked around and saw a HUGE Buddha statue all in gold that was hundreds of feet tall! All around the garden were tons of prayer wheels and beautiful landscaping. It was super peaceful... and then we went into the temple. I have never felt such an energy in a spiritual structure! walking into this temple [complete silence required], it was almost overpowering how charged the atmosphere was in there. The massive Buddha statue sat in the middle and the walls were ornately decorated with painted murals [they seemed to be different stories from Buddhist teachings...]

The last few days, everyone was leaving in dribs and drabs and the lectures finished on thursday the 6th. We got to cook with Premji the cook and make dinner altogether and enjoy our last peaceful night sitting out by the fire!