I have called this phenomenon of stealing common knowledge and indigenous science "biopiracy" and "intellectual piracy." According to patent systems we shouldn't be able to patent what exists as "prior art." But the United States patent system is somewhat perverted. First of all, it does not treat the prior art of other societies as "prior art." Therefore anyone from the United States can travel to another country, find out about the use of a medicinal plant, or find a seed that farmers use, come back here, claim it as an invention or an innovation.

I saw brilliant ideas coming out of the [Chipko] movement that needed better articulation, that needed elaboration and systematic analysis. I just followed that and it's been very exciting.

Water must be free for sustenance needs. Since nature gives water to us free of cost, buying and selling it for profit violates our inherent right to nature's gift and denies the poor of their human rights.

I describe what is happening as 'food fascism' because this system can only survive through totalitarian control. With patents on seed, an illegitimate legal system is manipulated to create seed monopolies. Seed laws that require uniformity - which criminalize diversity and the use of open-pollinated seeds - are fascist in nature. Suing farmers after contaminating their crops, [...] is another aspect of this fascism. Pseudo-hygiene laws that criminalize local, artisanal food are food fascism. And attacks on scientists and the silencing of independent research [...] are examples of knowledge fascism.

It's worse than slave trade because what is being traded is the very knowledge that makes survival possible for 80 percent of the people of this world. These 80 percent live on the biodiversity and the knowledge they have evolved as part of a rich collective heritage involving the use of seeds for growing crops and medicinal plants for healing.

We're living in the anthropocene age and now human beings will be the shapers of our future, that totally control the overall functions of not just our planet, but our relationship with other planets.

It is only with local [agriculture] that we can manage the complexity and care that sustainability requires.