"I DON'T SEPARATE HOPE FROM MY ACTIONS" VANDANA SHIVA AND SATISH KHUMAR

BRUNCH WITH VANDANA SHIVA AND SATISH KUMAR!

It's Saturday, I am in London, better than that, I am in some posh organic restaurant in Notting Hill  and I am having brunch with two of the greatest activists in the world of permaculture/sustainability etc etc.

The theme is Seeds. Vandana and her team have just published their latest book called "Seeds Freedom" and its available to read on line at navdadia.org.  Here is the link: http://www.navdanya.org/attachments/Seed%20Freedom_Revised_8-10-2012.pdf.

It has a very illuminating chapter on Europe and its policies on seeds and it's rather scary and complicated.

If you want to know more about what these two think, please go and get their books from the library! I recommend Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability and Peace from Vandana and my favourite book by Satish is You are Therefore I am: A Declaration of Dependence.
 

So I am not here to scare you because the News can do that quite easily.

I am here to give you some ideas of what you can do!

Hope has got to be at the base of all our actions - see title of today's effort.  How do we do this?

Here is how:

Only use seeds that either you have saved or you have bought from an independent seeds company. In the UK The Real Seeds Company is deemed to be sound. I have no information about the others but there was talk at the brunch that most seed companies in the world are now owned by the seeds and GM Food cartels...

O dear, I did say I was not going to scare you! Back to hope.

Learn how to collect seeds at the end of the growing season! I will be posting a tutorial on this in August with illustrations etc. Its much simpler than it sounds and there is no need to do a course on it. You will need loads of paper bags so start collecting now!

For now, if you want to have a go, look into your potato bags and see whether you have any that have start germinating. If you do, plonk them upright in the bottom of an egg box and leave them on a window sill in an unheated room (preferably but it works in the spare room too!). When the sprouting bit is about 2.5cm tall, plant them! I know that we get told that we have to buy new potato seeds every year because otherwise they will become "diseased". I am assured by Vandana (who knows what she is talking about) that is is not true.

Next year's potatoes chitting on the window sill!

Close up... not ready yet but give it another month....

Get together with your friends and start collecting and swapping seeds! Meet up for brunch (copycats!) or whatever and start doing it. It is not complicated, costs nothing and by saving your seeds and sharing them you will save yourself some money, get a bit of fun and also help break the monopoly of the big manufacturers of GM Food and seeds.

If you collect your seeds and use them year upon year, selecting the strongest plants (as I said, tutorial to follow), Vandana says that they will produce better vegetables, adapted to your soil and your garden. Amazing but rather logical, don't you think?

And finally, instead of believing that you need the prayer "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change...", start saying "God grant me the ability to change the things I cannot accept" (This is the current slogan of native canadian tribes who have had enough) and get a move on!

Don't feel powerless, it disempower you!

There is plenty that we can do to make a difference and I suggest you start right now!

In hope and with love,

Baya