8th Day – Climate Change Conference – Monday, 6th December

Piero Musini started his presentation by saying that today, most people, especially the young people are so separated from the natural resources that are connected to our consumption. School children tend to think that produce somehow originates from the supermarkets themselves. Before families lived in houses with land, they were all relatively self-sufficient. They kept the seeds from this year's crop to plant the following year. Then when people started to move to the cities, the system changed, from being farmers they started to work for others, needs grew and so ways to produce the food changed, tractors started to dig deeper into the soil to bring soil with no life to the surface to prevent weeds. They then used fertilizers with nitrogen to make crops grow large and quickly.

Today people don't know how to farm without chemicals. They use hybrid seeds which don't reach their full potential without the use of chemicals. An experiment was done where they used the natural seeds in soil with chemicals and first of all they grew quickly but were week and soon wilted. The hybrid seeds which were put in soil without chemicals remained weak and stunted. The production of the old natural way maybe less but the cost of production is also less.

New agriculture is only surviving because of government subsidies'. It has also been shown in a study that these new seeds are creating allergies (all the changes they have made in the seeds are such that if they were humans they would be monsters). The human body is not able to cope with all the modifications and so starts to react. Also behind the production of these seeds are huge companies who make the chemicals for the agriculture and also make the medicine to treat the people who become sick from those chemicals!

So in terms of choice it is important to buy as much organic food as possible because it is not only better for health but also for the environment because what goes into the soil goes into the water system, which then has to be cleaned with other costly chemicals, which in turn are not good for us either. A step further than organic farming is natural farming which is the old way of doing things, (but with some machine that mimic the way things were done such as spreading seeds)

Natural farming is simple, cost effective, and takes less time. The way we eat today is very expensive, meat takes so many resources, and we consume more and more and expect things to be available year round. We need to become more realistic and eat things in season. Piero then went on to explain about the experiments with Yogic agriculture in India, The Brahma Kumaris Rural Wing in association with Sardarkrushinagar Dantiwada Agricultural University in Gujarat are working with rural people, farmers, guiding them back to the natural ways of farming. There are many cases where large international companies go into India and get the farmers to buy their chemicals, machinery and hybrid seeds with the promise of larger profits, but many of them end up in debt and commit suicide.

The partnership with the university to experiment with Yogic Agriculture is for 5 years. The aim of the experiment is to see how meditation affects the plants and the cultivation of soil (how long it takes enrich the soil to bring the soil back to its rich organic self). The experiment starts by meditation with the seeds, and measuring the weight change, then the seeds are planted, and the meditations visualize a strong healthy plant going through the whole life-cycle. The farmers became more aware and many change their lifestyles and became vegetarians. The results of the meditation on the vegetables are quite significant and skeptical neighboring farmers on seeing the results have become interested in participating and so the idea is spreading.

The initial results are so far are very encouraging Increased iron content of the grain, significant drop in pest damage, higher seed germination, faster growth rate, increased micro-nutrient content of crops and increased growth, strength and velocity. The participants in the event were very interested and we had an animated conversation on the effect of meditation on matter. We finished the meeting with a lovely mediation.

Cancun Messe

BK Luciana Ferraz met several good contacts attending a Business Responsibility panel in the Brazilian Pavilion in Cancun Messe who have been connected to the Brahma Kumaris for some time. This side event was organized by the Ethos Institute, a leading think tank of business enterprises. Mr. Ricardo Young Silver, a COTT participant who has been twice to Madhuban and is a member of the council of the Ethos Institute and Mr. Oded Grajew, founder and honoree chairperson, came to know that in September 2011 there will be a conference for Rio 2012 and so this side event was proposed as preparation for this. Luciana also met Mr. Nelton Friedrich who is the director of coordination for Itaipu Binacional, the biggest Hydroelectric Company in the world, situated in the South of Brazil. Mr. Nelton came the same evening to Sister Jayanti's talk in B2B Hotel.