Our primary goal when writing this podcast was to try and give a brief overview of who Vandana Shiva is and what she has done. Neither of us knew too much about her to begin with, so an important thing to keep in mind is there is much more to learn about her and her endeavors than we have discussed in this particular episode. In a nutshell, she is a successful activist in bioethics, biodiversity, and food sovereignty (among other things, though those are where her primary efforts lie). We begin first with a bit on her background and growing up in India. Continuing onto her accomplishments, books, and successes as an activist, we talk mostly about her work towards food sovereignty. We also thought it was worth mentioning the challenges to her credibility that have been brought up in the past, and while we by no means discredit her or her work it’s of note to talk about.
Finally, we interviewed Lisa Miskelly for her opinion, as a small farmer with an abundance of knowledge on the topic of farming, GMOs, and food. We discuss Shiva’s influence, patenting GMOs, and GMOs themselves, especially in relation to Shiva’s hard anti-GMO stance which she has made abundantly clear over the years at various talks, interviews, and in her books. While this episode was mainly aimed at educating and informing rather than persuading, we concluded somewhat ambiguously that food sovereignty is an extremely difficult topic to ‘solve,’ albeit no one solution is one hundred percent perfect or correct.
I thought that the sound quality was very good and the music worked well. Quotes from the subject were also integrated very well and contributed greatly to the podcast. I learned that polyculture land can produce 5-10 times more nutrition than monocultural land. I was aware that it was more but now know how much.
This podcat was really done! The dual hosts in addition to bringing in the voice of Farmer Lisa really made for easy listening. Furthermore, the content was super informative and painted a nice holistic picture of Vandana Shiva. I appreciated that you looked at both the praise and the critique of Shiva, making a clear distinction between her reputation as an educated advocate and her ideas that bring the most pushback. I knew a little about her role in fighting GMOs, but hearing about her educational background and some of the controversy surrounding her ideas on GMOs helped me paint a clearer picture of Shiva. Overall, I really enjoyed listening to the conversation and think it turned out really well!
I really enjoyed listing to this podcast. I had not heard of or learned about Vandana Shiva previously and I can’t believe I hadn’t! I will definitely be looking into her work further. I found her comments about the Green Revolution most interesting, as the Green Revolution (though it has caused many issues) is credited with saving millions and millions of lives in India in the mid – 20th century.
I think that the combination of music, quotes from Shiva, interview with Ms. Miskelly, and the back-and-forth conversation worked together really effectively. The podcast was engaging and seemed like a solid overview of a complex person with controversial views.
This was my first time really learning about Vandana Shiva and it was interesting to hear all the different names she has been known by, such as an “eco-warrior goddess.” I find the anti-GMO movement to be very interesting, especially because there is so much controversy over it, so I enjoyed hearing about a woman who spearheaded this movement and was passionate about it. I also think it was great that you even included voice clips from Shiva herself, and input from Farmer Lisa since she, as a farmer, is very familiar with GMOs. The music made the podcast seem more “real” and engaging!