Shiney Varghese leads IATP's work on global water policy, focusing on the water crisis, its impact on water and food security, and possible local solutions that emphasize equity, environmental justice and sustainability. Currently, she examines the implications of GATS/WTO, water sector liberalization, and industrial agriculture for access to water. Since 2001 she has been the co-chair of the UNCSD fresh water caucus, the primary civil society voice on water at the UN Commission on Sustainable Development. Shiney has been working with IATP since 2001. Before moving to the United States in 1998, she worked in India on social and environmental issues for more than a decade with indigenous groups, civil society organizations and international groups such as Oxfam. She has presented and published works on the environment, gender and human rights. Shiney grew up on a farm in South Indian state of Kerala, and after high school moved to Gujarat. She is a graduate of the Institute of Rural Management, India, and has a master's in development from the Institute of Social Studies, Netherlands. Shiney was a visiting fellow at the Agrarian Studies program at Yale University in 1997-98.
The real value of water
By Shiney Varghese, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Even when we value embedded water as an economic good, we owe it to ourselves and future generations to treat water in a way that recognizes it first and foremost as invaluable.
Agroecological Transition in Mexico: ANEC’s journey to a Better Farm and Food System
By Zoe VanGelder, Shiney Varghese, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Many alternatives to industrial agriculture are emerging, and small farmers have been the pioneers of one such alternative: agroecology. The term refers to ecological principles and practices related to various aspects of farming, including soil health, water management, cover crops, crop rotation, biodiversity, natural pest control, and more.
Clean water: One of the First Casualties of Partisan Attacks to Roll Back Regulations
By Shiney Varghese, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Then the question is: who is interested in the repeal of laws that protect our environment? Who wants corporations to continue their pollution? Certainly not local communities who use the local waters.
Drinking water and Democracy: Tale of Two Cities
By Shiney Varghese, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
The tragic situation in Flint is in many ways a cautionary tale of democracy subverted, one that ties directly to the United States’ refusal to recognize basic human rights such as the right to water.
Scaling up agroecology: A tool for policy
By Shiney Varghese, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Even when they are convinced that agroecological approaches are the way forward, governments, funders and policy makers are challenged by the question of how to move forward.
The global water grab
By Shiney Varghese, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Writing in National Geographic in December 2012 about “small-scale irrigation techniques with simple buckets, affordable pumps, drip lines, and other equipment” that “are enabling farm families to weather dry seasons, raise yields, diversify their crops, and lift themselves out of poverty” water expert Sandra Postel of the Global Water Policy Project cautioned against reckless land and water-related investments in Africa. “[U]nless African governments and foreign interests lend support to these farmer-driven initiatives, rather than undermine them through land and water deals that benefit large-scale, commercial schemes, the best opportunity in decades for societal advancement in the region will be squandered.”