Saving Seed Trailer

This trailer is the first stage of an upcoming feature-length documentary on seeds, seed saving and biopiracy.

Currently, there are eighty-thousand edible plants used for food. Out of these eighty thousand, only one hundred and fifty are actively being cultivated, and just EIGHT are traded globally. Three hundred thousand vegetable species have become extinct in the last century. One more is lost every hour. When a seed species is lost, we not only lose its genetic diversity, we lose something of our collective heritage: the human history, the sweat, toil and care that went into creating that seed variety.

Currently, ten companies own 55% of the world's seed markets and their control is expanding. The introduction of genetically modified seeds further threatens biodiversity as genetically altered pollen mixes with, and permanently alters the gene pool of seeds that have evolved over 10,000 years of agriculture. Seed companies have a word for saving seed. They call it "piracy" and farmers have been sued for millions, even when the seed saving was out of ignorance or accident. Yet, the true pirates are the seed companies that are stealing a resource that belong to the people.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• seed saving
• gmo seeds
• seed diversity
• manitoba
• grain
• wheat