[4] Shiva is one of the leaders and board members of the International Forum on Globalization (with Jerry Mander, Ralph Nader, and Helena Norberg-Hodge), and a figure of the anti-globalisation movement.

[8] After a brief stint at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, she moved to Canada to pursue a master's degree in the philosophy of science at the University of Guelph in 1977 where she wrote a thesis entitled "Changes in the concept of periodicity of light".

She has assisted grassroots organisations of the Green movement in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Ireland, Switzerland, and Austria with opposition to advances in agricultural development via genetic engineering.

[12] This led to the creation of Navdanya in 1991, a national movement to protect the diversity and integrity of living resources, especially native seed, the promotion of organic farming and fair trade.

[13] Navdanya, which translates to "Nine Seeds" or "New Gift", is an initiative of the RFSTE to educate farmers of the benefits of maintaining diverse and individualised crops rather than accepting offers from monoculture food producers.

[14] In the area of intellectual property rights and biodiversity, Shiva and her team at the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology challenged the biopiracy of neem, basmati and wheat.

She chairs the Commission on the Future of Food set up by the Region of Tuscany in Italy and is a member of the Scientific Committee that advised former prime minister Zapatero of Spain.

"[22] The policy applied overnight, with the main purpose to save State foreign exchange bills on imported fertilizers,[23] caused a crisis with a significant reduction of farming output in several sectors, hitting the tea industry in particular[24][25][26] and reducing rice yields were by one third.

[21] Her work on agriculture started in 1984 after the violence in Punjab and the Bhopal disaster caused by a gas leak from Union Carbide's pesticide manufacturing plant.

[27][28][29] In an interview with David Barsamian, Shiva argues that the seed-chemical package promoted by green revolution agriculture has depleted fertile soil and destroyed living ecosystems.

She has campaigned against the implementation of the WTO 1994 Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement, which broadens the scope of patents to include life forms.

The creation of seed monopolies, the destruction of alternatives, the collection of superprofits in the form of royalties, and the increasing vulnerability of monocultures has created a context for debt, suicides, and agrarian distress.

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) twice analysed academic articles and government data and concluded the decrease and that there was no evidence on "resurgence" of farmer suicide.

Stefanie Lay described the book as a collection of thought-provoking essays but also found in it a lack of new ecofeminist theories and contemporary analysis, as well as "overall failure to acknowledge the work of others".

[52] Investigative journalist Michael Specter, in an article in The New Yorker on 25 August 2014 called "Seeds of Doubt",[10] raised concerns over a number of Shiva's claims regarding GMOs and some of her campaigning methods.

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.

"[10] Shiva responded that Specter was "ill informed"[53] 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.

[56] Journalist Keith Kloor, in an article published in 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.

[58] 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.

[58] As of 2005 over 2.5 million hectares were planted with "unofficial" Bt cotton in India, of which Noel Kingsbury said: 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.

[59] Shiva has repeatedly gone on record characterizing science as "a very narrow, patriarchal project" that has been around only "for a short period of history" and argued that "we name 'science' what is mechanistic and reductionist."

"[61][62] Vandana Shiva has been interviewed for a number of documentary films including Freedom Ahead, Roshni;[63] Deconstructing Supper: Is Your Food Safe?, The Corporation, Thrive, Dirt!

(2002), on genetic engineering, industrial agriculture and sustainable alternatives; and the documentary The World According to Monsanto, a film made by the French independent journalist Marie-Monique Robin.