Introduction: The Gendered Politics of Food and the Challenge of Staying Alive

1 Development, Ecology and Women 1

Development as a new project of western patriarchy 1

Maldevelopment as the death of the feminine principle 5

Two kinds of growth, two kinds of productivity 6

Two kinds of poverty 10

2 Science, Nature and Gender 14

Modern science as patriarchy’s project 15

The violence of reductionism 21

Profits, reductionism and violence 23

Two kinds of facts 26

Two kinds of rationality 29

Modern science and ecological crises 31

The natural-unnatural divide 34

3 Women in Nature 38

Nature as the feminine principle 38

Nature and women as producers of life 42

Gender ideology vs. the recovery of the feminine principle 48

4 Women in the Forest 55

Aranyani: the forest as the feminine principle 55

Colonialism and the evolution of masculinist forestry 61

The women of Chipko 67

Afforestation projects and reductionism 77

The approaching tragedy of the commons 83

The colonial heritage: commons as ‘wasteland’ 85

Mannu Rakshana Loota: saving the soil, protecting the commons 86

Breeding ‘super-trees’: the ultimate reductionism 89

Recovering diversity, recovering the commons 93

5 Women in the Food Chain 96

Green revolution: a western paradigm 96

The displacement of women from food production 99

Miracle seeds: breeding out the feminine principle 120

The myth of the miracle seeds 122

The myth of high yields and food self-sufficiency 128

From the green revolution to biotechnology 135

The death of soils 140

Soil-building strategies of traditional agriculture 140

Green revolution: a recipe for desertification 143

Diseases of micro-nutrient deficiency and toxicity 145

Waterlogged and saline deserts 146

Groundwater mining and the creation of dry deserts 151

Respecting the rights of the soil 151

Pesticides: poisoning the web of life 153

The farce of ‘improved’ varieties 154

Fostering pests with pesticides 156

Non-violent pest control: learning from nature, women and peasants 159

The violence of the white revolution 165

Hybridisation as genetic violence 169

Fragmentation of nature: integration of markets 173

6 Women and the Vanishing Waters 179

The disappearing source 179

Dams as violence to the river 184

Drilling deep and draining dry: the groundwater famine 195

Women: the water experts 207

7 Terra Mater: Reclaiming the Feminine Principle 219