Dr Vandana Shiva

Vandana Shiva is an Indian scholar, environmental activist, food sovereignty and organic farming advocator. She is currently based in Delhi and has authored more than twenty books. Dr Shiva earned her PhD. degree on quantum physics from the department of philosophy at the University of Western Ontario in 1978. In 1982 she founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Natural Resource Policy (RFSTN), an organization devoted to developing sustainable methods of agriculture.

She is founder and director of Navdanya – a women centred movement for the protection of biological and cultural diversity. It is a network of seed keepers and organic producers spread across 22 states in India. Navdanya has helped set up 122 community seed banks across the country, trained over 9,00,000 farmers in seed sovereignty, food sovereignty and organic farming over the past two decades. It also helped to set-up the largest direct marketing, fair trade organic network in India.

​For forty years Dr Shiva has been fighting a heroic battle on behalf of humanity and the ecologically besieged natural systems, opposing powerful multinational corporations. She  has been visiting professor/guest lecturer at the Univesity of Oslo (Norway), Shumacher College (UK), Mt Holyoke college (the USA), York Universiteit (CND), University of Luleå (SWE) and the University of Victoria (CND). In 1993, Dr Shiva received the Right Livelihood Award, an honour known as an "Alternative Nobel Prize".