Editing Vandana Shiva (section)

==Criticism==
Investigative journalist [[Michael Specter]], in an article in ''[[The New Yorker]]'' on 25 August 2014 called "Seeds of Doubt",<ref name="newyorker.com">{{cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/25/seeds-of-doubt|title=Vandana Shiva's Crusade Against Genetically Modified Crops – The New Yorker|date=25 August 2014|magazine=The New Yorker|access-date=20 January 2015}}</ref> raised concerns over a number of Shiva's claims regarding GMOs and some of her campaigning methods. He wrote: "Shiva's absolutism about G.M.O.s can lead her in strange directions. In 1999, ten thousand people were killed and millions were left homeless when a cyclone hit India's eastern coastal state of Orissa. When the U.S. government dispatched grain and soy to help feed the desperate victims, Shiva held a news conference in [[New Delhi]] and said that the donation was proof that 'the United States has been using the Orissa victims as guinea pigs' for genetically-engineered products, although she made no mention that those same products are approved and consumed in the United States. She also wrote to the international relief agency [[Oxfam]] to say that she hoped it wasn't planning to send genetically modified foods to feed the starving survivors."<ref name="newyorker.com" />

Shiva responded that Specter was "ill informed"<ref name="ShivaResponse" /> and that "for the record, ever since I sued Monsanto in 1999 for its illegal Bt cotton trials in India, I have received death threats", adding that the "concerted PR assault on me for the last two years from Lynas, Specter and an equally vocal Twitter group is a sign that the global outrage against the control over our seed and food, by Monsanto through GMOs, is making the biotech industry panic."<ref name="ShivaResponse">{{Cite web|url=http://vandanashiva.com/?p=105|title=Seeds of Truth – A response to The New Yorker {{!}} Dr Vandana Shiva|website=vandanashiva.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180826092608/http://vandanashiva.com/?p=105|archive-date=26 August 2018|access-date=1 December 2016}}</ref> [[David Remnick]], the editor of the ''[[The New Yorker|New Yorker]]'', responded by publishing a letter supporting Specter's article.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/09/02/new-yorker-editor-david-remnick-responds-to-vandana-shiva-criticism-of-michael-specters-profile/|title=New Yorker editor David Remnick responds to Vandana Shiva criticism of Michael Specter's profile|date=2 September 2014|newspaper=Genetic Literacy Project|access-date=1 December 2016}}</ref>

Cases of plagiarism have been pointed out against Shiva. Birendra Nayak noted that Shiva copied verbatim from a 1996 article in Voice Gopalpur in her 1998 book ''Stronger than Steel'',<ref>Birendra Nayak: Of 'Saviours' and Feet of Clay. Economic and Political Weekly. 4 March 2000</ref> and that in 2016, she plagiarised several paragraphs of an article by S Faizi on the Plachimada/Coca-Cola issue published in ''[[The Statesman (India)|The Statesman]]''.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/kerala-based-ecologist-s-faizi-accuses-vandana-shiva-plagiarism-40348 | title=Kerala based ecologist S Faizi accuses Vandana Shiva of plagiarism| date=16 March 2016}}</ref>

Journalist [[Keith Kloor]], in an article published in ''[[Discover Magazine|Discover]]'' on 23 October 2014 titled "The Rich Allure of a Peasant Champion", revealed that Shiva charges $40,000 per lecture, plus a [[business-class]] air ticket from New Delhi. Kloor wrote: "She is often heralded as a tireless 'defender of the poor,' someone who has courageously taken her stand among the peasant farmers of India. Let it be noted, however, that this champion of the downtrodden doesn't exactly live a peasant's lifestyle."<ref name="Discover Magazine">{{cite web|url=http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/2014/10/23/rich-allure-vandana-shiva/#.VG7vKfmUeSo|title=The Rich Allure of a Peasant Champion|website=Collide-a-Scape|access-date=20 January 2015|date=23 October 2014|archive-date=1 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141201225025/http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/2014/10/23/rich-allure-vandana-shiva/#.VG7vKfmUeSo|url-status=dead}}</ref>

[[Stewart Brand]] in [[Whole Earth Discipline]] described some of Shiva's statements as pseudo-scientific, calling her warnings about "heritable sterility" (''Stolen Harvest'', 2000) a "biological impossibility" but also plagiarism from Geri Guidetti, owner of the seed supplier company Ark Institute, and a "distraction" created by inflating the potential of [[Genetic use restriction technology|terminator genes]] based on a single 1998 patent granted to a US company.<ref name=":0" /> Brand also criticised the position of anti-GMO activists, including Shiva, who forced [[Zambia]]'s government to reject internationally donated corn in 2001-02 because it was "poisoned", as well as during the cyclone disaster in India. On the latter Shiva argued, "emergency cannot be used as market opportunity", to which Brand responded, "anyone who encourages other people to starve on principle should do some of the starving themselves". In 1998 Shiva was also protesting against Bt cotton program in India, calling it "seeds of suicide, seeds of slavery, seeds of despair", claiming she was protecting the farmers. Restrictive laws established in India under anti-GMO lobbying, however, led to widespread grassroots "seed piracy" where Indian farmers illegally planted seeds of [[Bt cotton]] and [[Genetically modified brinjal|Bt brinjal]], obtained either from experimental plantations or from [[Bangladesh]] (where they are planted legally) due to increased yield and reduced pesticide usage.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Brand|first=Stewart|title=Whole Earth Discipline|year=2010}}</ref> As of 2005 over 2.5 million hectares were planted with "unofficial" Bt cotton in India, of which [[Noel Kingsbury]] said:

{{Blockquote|text=Shiva's "Operation Cremate Monsanto" had spectacularly failed, its anti-GM stance borrowed from Western intellectuals had made no headway with Indian farmers, who showed they were not passive recipients of either technology or propaganda, but could take an active role in shaping their lives. What they did is also perhaps more genuinely subversive of multinational capitalism than anything GM's opponents have ever managed.|author=[[Noel Kingsbury]]|title= |source=Hybrid: The History and Science of Plant Breeding (2009)}}

In India, farmers planting GM crops illegally eventually formed the Shetkari Sanghatana movement, calling for reform of the restrictive laws created under anti-GMO lobbying and as of 2020 an estimated 25% of cotton farmed is GM.<ref>{{Cite web|title=After HTBT cotton, Maharashtra farmers plan to plant genetically-modified brinjal, soyabean|url=https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/agri-business/after-htbt-cotton-maharashtra-farmers-plan-to-plant-genetically-modified-brinjal-soyabean/article32093717.ece|access-date=2020-07-17|website=@businessline|date=15 July 2020}}</ref>