seed, for many was a way to ensure your life and livelihood for the next year. It is one of their highest duties to save and exchange seeds while there are now being turned into crimes. Corporations are claiming the intellectual property rights on various seeds and plants under so-called intellectual property laws. As seeds are altered just enough genetically they are able to be patented thus disallowing farmers to replant them without repurchasing them – all going against a centuries worth of traditions. Not only do the current patent laws go against planting traditions but religious ones as well, as Indian women use multiple varieties of rice in religious ceremonies. However, as terminator technologies take hold and monocultures become the wave of the future such traditions will fade into the past. Shiva’s biggest enemy in this book are corporations such as Monsanto and others like it who are working to transform the globes agriculture into large industrial style production with large uses of biotech crops, pesticides, and monocultures. Monsanto specifically is accused of creating products that will withstand more pesticide use and therefore allow more sales of their pesticide products, as they are primarily a chemical and pesticide company. Examples of such a crop are the genetically modified Roundup Ready Soybeans, which are engineered to be resistant to Roundup weed killer, however, the round up ready crops do not actually lower the amount of pesticides used. Especially in less developed countries where little pesticides or herbicides are used, the introduction of Roundup Ready and similarly modified crops will increase the use of new chemicals dramatically. Monsanto and their partner in crime Cargill have been responsible for the introduction of patented seeds into India as well as new crops that have lower nutritional content. With the broad marketing of soybeans around the world to new cultures, former staples are b...
