Basmati rice has always been a part of India’s culture, both as food and for religious purposes. The majority of the basmati rice farmers are Indian and they are women. The seed of the basmati rice was a symbol of security for the Indian people, whose main diet consisted of basmati rice. The trading of the seed allowed for the women to cultivate over 200,000 varieties of the rice, which would include long or short grain, white or brown as some examples of variations. Trading of the seed was a cultural tradition, one in which you get what you give. It was understood in the culture that the seed was not something that one could own, but was given back to nature and people in various ways.

Basmati rice has been enjoyed by people all over the world. Now it is seen as a mere business endeavor by major American corporations, such as RiceTec. RiceTec is a Texas company that has been fighting to gain a patent on the basmati rice in India. The company has filed complaints to the World Trade Organization and the WTO has allowed for RiceTec to have a “varietal patent” which allows for the company to set up monocultures of rice, by not trading the seeds with the natives and endangering the ecosystem with these harmful monocultures. The women in India realized that the land needed to have variety and not be overused with one type of rice, so they traded their seed and had a more diverse and healthy land.

Allowing RiceTec to go into India and monopolize the seed and the knowledge of the seed and claim it as property results not only in economic growth for RiceTec, but also in theft from nature and its people. The people mostly affected by this theft are the women who have always worked in the rice fields and been spiritually connected to the rice.

Vandana Shiva is from India and also a feminist activist and scholar. She is involved in the Navdanya Movement, which is dedicated to conserving the native seed diversity and keep large corporations from stealing and claiming ownership over the seed. Shiva refers to the World Trade Organization as the “World Tyranny Organization” which enforces tyrannical anti-people, anti-nature decisions to enable corporations to steal the world’s harvests through secretive, undemocratic structures and processes. How could one person claim ownership over something that nature has provided? When corporations come in and claim ownership of nature’s seed and then import it back into India and sell it for outrageous prices, they only create job loss for Indian women, loss of religious and food practices, and compromise the delicate ecosystem.

The question that I ask is, who is benefiting from this “varietal patent” of the basmati rice, because it is obvious who is suffering.

Suggested Reading:
Vandana Shiva. Stolen Harvest: The hijacking of the Global Food Supply. Boston, MA: South End Press, 2000.