Navdanya, a Delhi-based NGO, is keen on developing community seed banks in West Bengal's Singur and Nandigram as part of its 'Organic India' campaign to save, breed and multiply native seeds and prevent bio-piracy of indigenous seeds and plants.
"Join the Seed Satyagraha to stop patents on seeds and patents on life. Boycott GM seeds like Bt. Cotton," the NGO Director Dr Vandana Shiva said expressing hope that organic seeds will further spread agro-ecological farming bringing joy to farmers of Singur and Nandigram.
She called upon people to rejuvenate biodiversity, practice and promote organic farming and also to rejuvenate water and soil through organic farming.
The NGO mooted a pan-India yatra (march) to promote Gandhian philosophy of Swaraj, Swadeshi and Satyagraha and as a part of it, reached Kolkata today along with activists.
The yatra is aimed at celebrating 100 years of Mahatma Gandhi's Champaram Satyagraha.
The NGO took a pledge with the village pradhan and Singur MLA Rabindra Nath Bhattacharya to make Singur free of farm poisons.
Later Dr Shiva told a press conference, "Today as we take our Satyagraha Yatra from Kolkata to Nandigram and further to the site of Salt Satyagraha in Balasore, we pledge to make a new India, a Jaivik Bharat (Organic India) by 2047."
"After paying homage to those who participated in the Salt Satyagraha of 1930, we will conclude the Yatra on April 22 Mother Earth Day at the Navdanya's community seed bank in Odisha.
"We will renew our Satyagraha for the Earth with a commitment to save and sow the seeds of freedom. We know freedom for Earth and all her beings is inseparable from the freedom of people," she said.
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