7:15 pm | documentary | Q&A with filmmaker Sean Kaminsky and Ken Greene from the Hudson Valley Seed Library (who is featured in the film)
One of the world’s most precious resources is at risk and most people don’t know that is happening or what to do. This groundbreaking film will help others learn what is at stake and what can be done to protect the source of nearly all our food: SEEDS.
While the price of gold and oil skyrockets the fate of our most priceless commodity is ignored. Seeds provide the basis for everything from fabric, to food to fuels. Seeds are as essential to life as the air we breathe or water we drink…but given far less attention. Over the past one hundred years, seeds have steadily shifted from being common heritage to sovereign property.
Biopiracy: Large corporations are stealing seed varieties from under us by slowly patenting them. The fruit and vegetable varieties we enjoy today exist because of choices our ancestors made. People saved seed from one healthy plant versus another and new varieties were created. This means your grandparents, great grandparents or perhaps much further back depending on your family history. We share ownership of more than ten thousand years of collective agricultural blood, sweat and toil that has allowed civilization to flourish. This is our agricultural Commons.
Genetic contamination: Plants grown from transgenic seeds (also known as GMOs) send pollen through the wind and contaminate neighboring crops. When this happens large companies threaten affected farmers with lawsuits (and nearly always win). What’s more, transgenic seeds have many proven dangerous health effects and there is even more we don’t know. Once a crop is contaminated, there is no turning back.
Extinction: In the last one hundred years 94 percent of open pollinated fruit and vegetable varieties vanished. Seeds that were lovingly nurtured over decades or even hundreds of years are gone forever. We desperately need diversity in a changing climate.
In the past, seeds were communal. They were a shared resource not unlike the water we drink or the air we breathe. One hundred years ago things started to change. Today, corporate-owned seed accounts for 82% of the world-wide market. Seeds are no longer ‘free’ or open source, they are proprietary.
As you can tell, there is plenty that might keep you up at night, but this will neither be a downer nor a negative documentary. Rather it will be a project that inspires people with the beauty, mystery and intrinsic potential for change that lies dormant within each seed.
You’ll meet a diverse range of individuals whose lives center around seeds. Farmers. Renegade gardeners. Passionate seed savers. Artists. Seed activists. The most innovative thinkers and consciousness raisers of our generation. This film will take viewers on a journey to experience the story of seeds like no other.
It’s not too late…yet. There are many reasons to be hopeful.
For more information http://www.opensesamemovie.com