The Navdanya Freedom Seed Kit

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) form are part of industrial agriculture; the origin of approximately 25% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, 60% of methane gas emissions, and 80% of nitrous oxide emissions.

Industrial agriculture consumes ten times more fossil fuel energy than it produces as food, and is highly dependant of chemicals (which impoverish soils and can be highly polluting), and on intensive irrigation (which uses large amounts of water). Industrial agriculture is also based largely around monocultures, a production scheme highly vulnerable to changes in climate, and to pathogens.

As climate change becomes more severe, changes in water patterns leading to drought and flooding, extreme weather events and a change in the location of disease will mean that all crop production comes under increased risk of damage. Monocultures pose particularly high threat to international food security for this reason - lack of adaptability, and resilience.

Despite the astonishing figures demonstrating that industrial agriculture is a major contributor to climate change, and the evidence of the extreme vulnerability of the present food model, agriculture systems are barely discussed by either governments or civil society movements engaged in climate and energy issues.

GMOs, to be introduced to our food markets for human consumption (BT brinjal is expected for April 2009), are exacerbating the problem: GMO cultivation promotes monocultures associated with increased machinery use, and the use of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers produced by the same corporations that sell the seeds. They also pose public health risks (with recent research studies carried out on mice showing links between GMO consumption and infertility), increase the dependence of farmers on corporations (as the seeds are often designed to be terminal (ie not to produce crops that re-seed), pose environmental risks of genetic pollution through cross-pollination with native species, and threaten native biodiversity through the means by which they are cultivated, through competition with local species, and through hybrid formations.

Navdanya is proposing a viable alternative to the present agricultural model: biodiverse organic farming; Based on organic cultivation techniques, native seeds (nutritious, adapted to local climates and environment and free to conserve and exchange among farmers) and decentralized marketing.

The Seeds of Freedom movement is an initiative at the grassroot level, conceived as a way of providing reliable information on the importance of the protection of biodiversity and about the threats posed by GMOs, with the final goal of promoting people's participation on food system decision making, through their consuming choices or through public acts and demonstrations.

The "Seeds of Freedom" campaign, launched by Navdanya in September 2008, is a direct response to the demands of an increasing number of people in India.

It has 2 major goals:

(1) To defend our native seeds: Nutritious, tasty, diverse, productive, and free to conserve and exchange.

(2) To provide public information on the dangers of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO).

Our common Seed Satyagraha:

Because cultivating our native varieties of cereals, vegetables, trees and pulses means defending our food security, our health, our livelihoods, and our independence from foreign corporations, Navdanya invites you to take action now: Plant the Freedom Seed!