VANDANA SHIVA: LET'S DECOLONISE OUR MINDS

Vandana Shiva is one of the world’s most influential environmental thinkers, a physicist turned anti-colonial activist who has spent decades challenging corporate control over land, food, and life itself. In this exchange, she is not offering a conspiracy theory; she is describing how power actually operates in the global food system.

Her argument is grounded in history and policy. Trade rules under the World Trade Organization did not emerge in a political vacuum. Corporations such as Cargill played a central role in shaping the Agreement on Agriculture, which opened the door to subsidised dumping from the Global North while dismantling food self-reliance across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Farmers who once fed their communities were forced into dependency on imports and volatile global markets.

Shiva extends the critique to food regulation itself. She points to how global standards on food safety and trade were influenced by multinational food and beverage companies, privileging ultra-processed products while marginalising local, traditional, and nutrient-dense foods. The result, she argues, is not just hunger, but a global epidemic of chronic disease driven by corporate diets.

At its core, her message is anti-colonial. She links today’s food crisis to a continuation of empire, where control no longer arrives through armies, but through rules, patents, and trade agreements written by and for corporate power. Wealth concentrates, billionaires emerge, and democracy is hollowed out.

Yet Shiva’s message is not despair. Her optimism lies in resistance. From farmers protesting in the Netherlands to mass uprisings in Sri Lanka, she reminds us that people are not powerless. The most enduring form of colonisation, she argues, is mental; convincing societies they are inert, dependent, and weak.

Her call is for decolonisation of the mind, a return to collective power, ecological balance, and non-violent resistance. Not power over others, but power with nature, communities, and life itself.

To watch the whole episode on Russel Brands YouTube channel, here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJzbdcHQ4-A