A Visit to Navdanya

Vandana Shiva, the noted Indian environmentalist and activist, is speaking at Amherst tonight. I'm very sad that I will most likely have to miss it--an unavoidable work conflict, alas--but I'm grateful to have had a chance to meet with her for tea this morning.

I met Vandana Shiva for the first time in Delhi in January. Since I was going to be in India already, I was asked by a colleague to investigate the possibility of sending Five College students interested in sustainability to an organic farm and education center outside of Dehradun, run by Dr. Shiva's NGO, Navdanya. Through my friend Rasil (in whose documentary, Harvest of Grief, Dr. Shiva is a clear and excellent voice), I was able to meet Dr. Shiva for tea. A week later, I went up to Dehradun to spend a few days at the farm. (Of course, since this was India, it was more complicated than that. I was originally supposed to go to Varanasi first, but my train was delayed by 11 hours, 17 hours, 23 hours and then finally canceled, so I had to do some frantic scrambling. The folks at Navdanya were very accommodating, though, and didn't seem at all fazed when I asked if I could come up the next day rather than the next week.)

I had a lovely stay there. Dehradun is in the foothills of the mountains, and the farm is on the outskirts. In addition to the permanent staff, there were 6 interns and volunteers in residence when I was there along with a January interterm group from Colby College (small world!). I didn't write about it at the time, though I meant to, so I thought that Dr. Shiva's visit was a good excuse for me to post some Navdanya photos now.

Here's the sign you see at the entrance:

After which you go down a peaceful road toward the farm:

Then, the office and dining hall (and the stone wall outside where I sat several times to take advantage of the office's wireless connection!).


A particularly interesting sign in the office . . .


Although the sun came out during the day, nights and mornings were freezing. I slept under two incredibly thick and heavy comforters (the being suffocated by your covers means of staying warm) both nights, with my fleece hat on. The second morning, Jeet Pal, a member of the staff, brought me a cup of herbal tea, which I sipped sleepily (and warmly) from under my pile of covers. Given this, I was especially glad that Navdanya has solar hot water heaters--and the water was hot even when the sun wasn't out! Here's the building next to where I stayed.


A project by a recent intern documented all the local staff and farmers associated with Navdanya. I was only there for 2 1/2 days so didn't get to meet everyone who works there, but those I did meet were all very kind and helpful.

The second day I was there, I went on a farm tour with the Colby group, which had just arrived. We walked through the fields and ended up at the seed bank. Seed is saved from each harvest (Navdanya has 40 something acres of farmland) and then distributed to farmers, both locally and across India.

A posted list of seed varieties:

The rice room!

The fields were also labeled. There were a mix of vegetables and grains, plus some experimental fields.
There were also trees of various sorts and a medicinal herb garden. I wondered what a person had to do in order to have his name on the sign next to the tree he planted.


There are lots of reasons I'd love to go back, but one is to look at the cool trees again: