In the 1960s and 1970s, the Green Revolution in India provided food security for a nation whose population had more than doubled since independence in 1947. Agricultural productivity was achieved through heavy reliance on fertilizers and pesticides as well a few high-yield seed varieties, sown in the agricultural practice of monocropping – growing a single crop repeatedly on the same land to increase efficiency – which in turn reduces agricultural diversity. Decades of monocropping have led to soil salinization and degradation, along with major increases in water consumption through public subsidies and abusive practices (Vyas, 2003) as well as accelerated groundwater depletion even in such rain-fed states as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Gujarat (Virmani & Lepineux, 2015).

The Navdanya movement is a struggle for freedom against large transnational corporations and their partnered states for the most fundamental survival needs: food and water. In this movement, independent and indigenous farmers practiced civil disobedience by refusing to follow laws constructed and enforced by the very states charged with protecting their fundamental human rights (Armaline & Glasberg, 2009). Agricultural biotechnology is at the forefront of the international development discourse. The debate around genetically modified (GM) crops has widened to include the future of agriculture and small-scale farmers, corporate control, property rights, and the rules of global trade (Scoones, 2008).