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2016 is the year of Pulses. Navdanya is launching a campaign “Pulse of life” to conserve India’s pulse diversity, grow more dals in India, and reclaim India’s Dalhan (Dal) sovereignty.

Visit the International Year of Pulses’ Website to Learn More

Today, agro-chemical and agribusiness corporation are plotting to steal from millions of Indians one of the most essential nutrition from their diets. This is methodically being done by increasing dependence on imports, price manipulation, inflation and bad policy. India’s dal farmers are not supported by the government.

In 2016, Navdanya starts an intensive drive to make India’s farms more diverse and promote desi dals all over India. Navdanya will start new community seed banks of dal varieties, train more farmers in biodiverse organic farming, share, and bring real dal to farmers members through fair trade and the Food Smart Citizen movement.

(Navdanya organises Women of India Organic Exhibition with Ministry of Women and Child Welfare – November 2015)

Join the Dal Satyagraha Boycott imported nutritionally deficient, chemically and industrially grown oilseeds and pulses, and products from GMOs.Demand that government stop the imports and the subsidies that are making inferior food products artificially cheap ,robbing Indians of health and nutrition, taste and quality, and the joy of eating.

Join the Pulse of Life Movement 

Create Food Democracy 

Protect Biodiversity, the climate and your health 

Create Earth Democracy 


Add your Pulses Event/Project launch to the Seed Freedom Events Calendar


Download Navdanya’s Pulse of Life annual calendar


Download IFOAM Factsheet on Pulses in Organic farming


Events, Actions and Articles

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Dr. Vandana Shiva to launch book “Pulse of Life: The Rich Biodiversity of Edible Legumes”

Nuremberg, Germany – 11 February 2016


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Dal Swaraj Yatra – Pulse of Life Pilgrimage in Uttar Pradesh & Madhya Pradesh

4 – 15 February 2016


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The pulse of life

When pulses are removed from farming systems, synthetic nitrogen fertilisers are used… A recent study has shown that organic farming increased nitrogen content of soil between 44 and 144 per cent.

By Dr Vandana Shiva – The Asian Age, 27 January 2016


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Navdanya ‘Pulse of Life’ Campaign Launch

Celebrations at Navdanya Biodiversity Conservation Farm in Doon Valley and at Navdanya Organic Café in Dilli Haat, New Delhi

6 January 2016


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Meeting with farmers in Arunachal Pradesh for Anna Swaraj (Food Freedom)

5 – 6 January 2016


Dals in our Agriculture and Food

Download pdf


Activist Vandana Shiva slams govt handling of dal crisis

The Times of India, 13 November 2015


In 2015, we have historically high daal (pulses) prices and high imports. In 1998, the WTO forced India to remove it’s Quantitative Restrictions on agricultural imports, which were necessary for India’s food sovereignty. The removal of these protections allowed for US-subsidised GMO Soya Oil as ‘Edible Oil’ to be dumped into the Indian market – in violation of India’s laws which do not allow the import of GM food, and the required labelling of the imports. The reduction of cultivation of pulses and oilseeds because of the expansion of rice and wheat monocultures, during the Green Revolution, and the spread of GM cotton and Hybrid corn during the second green revolution, has created these price rises. Reduced area under biodiverse ecological farming practices has undermined India’s food security.

( Corporate Imperialism – The only reason for GMOs – November 2015)


The same system that drives farmers into a debt trap also creates malnutrition. Chemical monocultures and commodity production displace biodiversity which is a source of nutrition. The Green Revolution, which only works as monocultures, has destroyed our pulses and oilseeds – which were always grown as a mixture along with cereals. Today, in the land of urad and moong, tuar and chana, gahat and naurangi, we are importing “yellow pea dal”, having removed them from our fields to grow Green Revolution monocultures. In the land of til and sarson, alsi and coconut, we are importing GMO soya oil and palm oil. If we avoid growing nutritious biodiverse crops, malnutrition is a predictable outcome. If we grow or food with toxic chemicals then diseases related to these poisons  are bound to increase.

(ANNA SWARAJ (Food Sovereignty) 2020 – August 2015)


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SOCIAL MEDIA STREAM (NEWEST – OLDEST)


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