Vandana Shiva spoke to Ryerson last week about sustainability.

Drew Penner

In front of a packed auditorium, renowned physicist and sustainability activist Vandana Shiva applauded Ryerson’s decision to go bottled water-free by 2013.

The keynote speaker for the Ryerson Students’ Union’s highly publicized Global Awareness Week said there’s no reason why the water pledge shouldn’t become a reality.

“The water pledge Ryerson has signed will have the strength that people put behind it,” she told The Ryersonian in an interview after her speech.

Founder of Navdanya, a woman-centred network of organic seed producers in India, Shiva encouraged the university to also draft, as a logical next step, a “food pledge,” so the campus would get food products from local organic farmers.

“It’s totally possible, just like the water pledge is possible,” she said.

 “A food pledge would mean students eating healthier.” 

Shiva said eating a balanced diet and making links with organic farmers are just a few ways students can change their approach  to food.

She adds that it’s time for Ryerson to stop wasting money on harmful agricultural practices.

“It should now be spent on good eating which comes from good farming,” she said.

When asked about Ryerson’s contract with Coca-Cola, Shiva said she feels the company does more harm than good on campus.

“Coca-Cola basically takes revenue out of the pockets of students, by selling things that should be a public good,” she said.

“Clean drinking water should be available in every corridor.”

Shiva was involved in a water pledge in a small village called Plachimada in Kerala, India where Coca-Cola was extracting water for use in beverages. It  forced the people who lived there to travel for clean water.

Greer Brabazon, of the Sociology Students’ Union and an organizing member of Sustainable Food Week, said the connection between exploitation  in India and food choices at Ryerson isn’t easily seen.

A student buying a pita in the Pitman residence cafeteria might not realize the tomatoes in it were shipped in over long distances, a result of corporate monoculture farming, she said.

“When it comes to food on campus we are more connected to those companies than we think,” she said.