Seeds of Tomorrow Film

  1. Dr. Noel Vietmeyer of the National Academy of Sciences studies the genetic diversity of crop plants. He indicates that most of the USA supermarket produce is not native plants.
  2. Dr. Irma Bennett studies the genetic diversity of wheat.
  3. The United States seed bank is located at Fort Collins, Colorado. Seeds are cleaned bagged and stored in the cold. Stored seeds lose viability with time. Seed samples are routinely tested for vaibility. When grown through several generations they lose their genetic diversity.
  4. Tepary beans from Arizona are being hybred to replace African beans being lost due to drought. Dr. Barbra Webster from the University of California studies this problem.
  5. The world is losing the genetic diversity of crop plants. Drought in Ethiopia caused farmers to eat their seeds rather than store them. In Nazaret, Ethiopia seed biers purchasing seed grain to preserve wild types.
  6. Centers of crop diversity are: Asia, the Mediterranean, northeast Africa, and central & south America. One of the best is Peru. Potatoes come from the Andes. When they were taken to Europe it took 200 years for them to be accepted as food.
  7. In 1861 the potato was a staple of Europe’s poor. In Ireland in 1841 there was a potato blight. Famine followed and many people died. Migration followed. One million came to the USA including the Kennedy family.
  8. In Peru there are thousands of kinds of potatoes so a blight would not cause the same kind of problem.
  9. Dr. Carlos Ochoa developed hybred potatoes for use in Peru. This has caused the near extermination of wild types.
  10. In southeast Asia there were thousands of varieties of rice. New varieties displace the old.
  11. In the USA corn varieties of the past were lost in the same way. In the 1970's a corn blight struck and over 50% of the crop was lost!
  12. Dr. Winston Brill of Agricetus transplants genes to improve genetic resistance, etc.
  13. At Monsanto Dr. Howard Schniderman says that they have spent 150 million dollars developing disease and insect resistant plants.
  14. Investors must regain their invested money to justify costs. Results of reaserch sold rather than given. Who owns the world’s genetic diversity?
  15. Southern Ethiopia is the origin of the world’s coffee.
  16. Kenowa, Inca Wheat, among other unknown and unused species are being investigated as sources of food.