African Women Organize to Reclaim Agriculture Against Corporate Takeover

[marmar]

African Women Organize to Reclaim Agriculture Against Corporate Takeover

Wednesday, 06 January 2016 00:00
By Mphatheleini Makaulele, Other Worlds | Op-Ed


Beverly Bell and Simone Adler conducted the following interview with Mphatheleini Makaulele from which this text is drawn. Makaulele is an award-winning indigenous leader, farmer, and activist, and Director of Dzomo la Mupo, a community organization in rural South Africa. She is also part of the African Biodiversity Network.


Everybody originated with indigenous ways of living and the way of Mother Earth.

The real role of women is in the seed. It is the women who harvest, select, store, and plant seeds. Our seeds come from our mothers and our grandmothers. To us, the seed is the symbol of the continuity of life. Seed is not just about the crops. Seed is about the soil, about the water, and about the forest.

When we plant our seeds, we don't just plant them anytime or anywhere. We listen to our elders, who teach us about the ecological calendar. The seed follows this natural ecological flow. When it bears another seed, that one is planted and the cycle continues.

If you cut the cycle of the seed, you cut the cycle of life. We do not understand how something [like genetically modified and chemically treated seeds] can be called seeds if they cannot continue the cycle of life.

Reviving African Agricultural Values

In South Africa, we know there is a freedom of plants to germinate and grow. People are now awakened to the word GMO, and many people are trying to bring forward the issue of food sovereignty. ..................(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/34308-african-women-organize-to-reclaim-agriculture-against-corporate-takeover

[nxylas]

1. K&R.

This is the sort of thread that tends to drop like a stone on DU. But it's important stuff.