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HOW THE AMRITA BHOOMI CENTRE STARTED?The decision of Indian farmers to create an alternative was realized through the collaboration between the "SUM Association" and the "Amrita Bhoomi Trust"
In 1993, Indian farmers started the "Seeds Satyagraha".(1)- a non-violent fight against "Intellectual Property Rights" (IPRs) in agriculture asserted by Transnational Corporations by means of patents on living organisms- with the meeting attended by 500,000 farmers in Bangalore, India.
At the meeting Indian farmers announced their resolve to initiate an "International Centre for Sustainable Development" as an alternative to industrial agriculture, finalized to export, imposed by multinational corporations who are trying to monopolize the seed market in order to control agriculture, particularly food crops at a worldwide level.
In November 1996, at the " World Food Summit", organized by FAO, many representatives of associations and grassroot movements of third World farmers gathered in Rome. Through a TV interview we first got to hear Professor Nanjundaswamy, the President of KRRS (or Farmers Associations of the Indian State of Karnataka).
During his interview he stated that organic agriculture is the only solution for the self-sufficiency of the Third World population. Therefore, SUM Association got in touch with Prof.Nanjundaswamy and SUM Association went to meet him in Bangalore, India.
During the meeting with him, SUM Association understood the problems that the Indian farmers and Karnataka farmers had to deal with and realized that there was a real and concrete possibility of collaborating with the SUM Association in Italy..
This is how the International Centre for Sustainable Development AMRITA BHOOMI started.
(1) "Satyagraha" is the name given by Gandhi to non-violent civil disobedience. It means "Fight for Freedom".
