Original subtitles

[Wind whistling]

[Whooshing]

Man, voice-over: When I first came here,

we were, you know, a hippie, back-to-nature,

self-sufficient thing.

We were watching too many Davy Crockett,

Daniel Boone movies and-- and reading too much Thoreau.

[Singing in foreign language]

Voice-over: We were trying to seek a different vision.

[Continues singing]

The first time I saw bean collections and so on,

it was like, "Whoo," a jewelry store lit up,

and, um, I've always just been dazzled by diversity.

I don't like people that are all-straight, all-gay,

all-Communist, all Christian-- let them all be there--

and absolutely the different kinds of seeds.

[Whistling a tune]

My great-grandfather was a--a farmer.

Looking through our family photo album,

I just wish that I could, like, somehow step into that photo,

say, "Hi, Great-Grandma, it's me, Billy, you know,

and can I have some of these?" and--because I know for a fact

that 90-something percent of the things are now extinct.

They are my family, and they're gone.

I have this horrible vision of some day

that the Creator would look down and He'd come look around,

and say, "Uh, where is this? Well, where'd that go?

I created this. Where did it go? How come it's not here?"

I see myself as Noah,

not, God.

Noah didn't get to decide whether the crocodiles

came on the ark or not, or the black flies.

His job was to load them on, OK? That's my job.

I have thousands of varieties that I'm maintaining.

People of the future-- plant breeders and gardeners--

they will decide, "What the heck did Will save that for?"

I don't get to make that decision.

I--my job is to keep these all on the ark,

keep them alive for 40 days and 40 nights

until the flood's over.

I may discover ten years from now that that seed will be

in huge demand because it has in its genes some resistance

to some disease which is only now evolving.

In many, many cases, what I've got is not available

anywhere else.

It's my sweetheart.

Voice-over: The year that I fail to grow a variety

is the year it is lost to me

and, in some cases, perhaps lost to the planet.

Some of these things are right on the edge of extinction.

[Birds chirping]

We have this collection

of several hundred potato varieties:

potatoes that are purple or black skin with yellow flesh;

some with a purple skin, hot pink streaks in them.

We have in the collection-- there's a variety of Lumpers.

Most of the Irish, uh, in the 1830s and 1840s

were growing Lumpers, big yielder.

And none of those varieties had any resistance

to late blight.

This is the potato that killed a million Irishmen

because of the fact that they are the one or two

or three varieties that were totally vulnerable.

This is the variety that explains

why "O" is the biggest section

of the South Boston phone directory.

Genetic diversity is the hedge

between us and global famine.

[Birds chirping]

Man: The diversity in our seed stocks is as endangered

as a panda or a golden eagle

or a polar bear right now.

We have the largest seed shortage

in history.

Man 2: There's this beautiful dance between the plant

and the humans that find each other

and make a culture possible.

[Woman giggles]

Chapela: In Mesoamerica

over 10,000 years ago,

corn found humans,

and humans found corn.

Corn really is this beautiful co-creation

between plants and humans.

The domestication of corn was centered

in the Oaxacan Valley of Mexico.

The incredible evolutionary leaps

that we took with corn

is a miracle.

It ignited the sacred connection that we had with seeds.

Corn seeds moved along the entire spine of the Americas.

It became this revolution.

It became this new way of being able to feed ourselves.

Man: It's what fueled you from a small tribe to an empire.

It took 4,700 years

to get it to the U.S. border.

Then, about a thousand years ago,

corn is everywhere in what we now call

the United States.

[Speaking native language]

Voice-over: As keepers of the corn,

the corn has come up

with us through our migrations,

sustaining us.

[Speaks native language]

Our first mothers were the blue corn

and white corn woman.

This is my grandmother, my grandfather,

my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister,

my kids, my grandkids, and myself.

We all...

are one.

[Speaking native language]

Voice-over: Indian people, we--we talk in one language...

the language of the seeds.

Now, my grandfather tell me one time,

"This is very important for life,"

and he put me, before he died--

[exhales sharply]

Before he died, he put me-- handful of the seeds in my hand,

and he said, "This is life.

"And put it always in your pocket

"because if you have seeds in your pocket,

"you can walk and you can eat the seeds.

But if you have money, you cannot eat the money."

[Kiss]

We lost our seeds.

We lost our food.

But when you're losing the seeds,

you're losing completely your traditional ways of eating.

In all these bags you see,

we have different type of the seeds.

This is gold.

Voice-over: The seeds, they're not very happy

because they are one in--in the top of the other one.

They're beginning to tell us, "We need a new house,"

a place where they can have

a home like--like us.

Man: Native Seeds/SEARCH is a seed bank.

Most of the seeds came to us through Native Americans.

As modern creatures, we're in debt to them.

They were the last expression of these stewards going back

thousands of years that took care of these things

and made sure that we got them.

Had somebody the other day call this Fort Knox.

Heh! There's just so much wealth in here.

It's about 2,000 different varieties

of invaluable agricultural crops.

All 38 generations,

all this energy comes down into the seed,

you get a hold of it, and then all the future

and the millions more that can come out goes out,

and you're at that point

when you hold those seeds in your hands.

Right here is the--the mother corn.

This is the ancient ancestor

from which all corn came,

and that's what we're losing.

I mean, we just don't have the time left, again,

on this small planet, to re-create all this stuff.

That's why it's so invaluable; once it's gone, it's gone.

Seeds are living embryos.

They do have a lifespan.

McDorman: We try to grow everything out every ten years.

That's why we have the 60-acre farm here.

Voice-over: We are hugely vulnerable

with all of those seeds.

You think about crimes against humanity.

Blow up a seed bank, and whoa!

Becomes an immediate target to weaken a country.

Woman: When we invaded Iraq, we destroyed that seed bank.

and we destroyed that garden

and we destroyed that repository

of the great ancient seeds

that had been collected by that government

for the benefit of mankind.

Man: During World War II, Hitler was aiming

to conquer Nikolai Vavilov's seed bank in St. Petersburg...

[Descending bomb whistling]

and the people associated with that seed bank

holed themselves up in the building

and kept those seeds protected,

even though they were starving to death,

and missiles and bombs were landing all around them.

McDorman: Svalbard has been called the doomsday seed vault.

The idea was to have a backup, like, the ultimate backup

just in case the seed bank is destroyed

or there's catastrophic cultural and economic collapse.

We see all the seed banks in the world looted

just for food, and they need their seeds back.

But the problem with it is that we think

that we don't have to worry about this now.

It gives a false sense of security.

Bonsall: All the gene banks, they are all arks.

Ultimately, life does not go on on an ark.

I'm not confident that any of us have got something long-term

in place that can weather the slings and arrows

of outrageous fortune that might come our way.

[Wind roaring]

Nabhan: We're now facing severity of climate change,

the most radical we've had since the last Ice Age.

This is happening at an unprecedented rate,

and it's putting pressure on the diversity of life forms.

Woman: You know, this is the driest they have seen

since 119 years--

Golden State's drought, the worst in over a thousand years.

[Wind whistling]

Voice-over: In northern New Mexico,

we had a series of, um, drier and drier years.

Normally, this time of the year,

we're going to get ready for planting,

but, well, there's not any moisture.

Usually you'll hit a wet spot.

Lot of the animals began to feel the effects of the drought.

They consumed probably about a third

of our, uh--our corn and all of our beans,

so it's--it's tough for everybody.

[Bird screeches]

Man, voice-over: Our corn is among the few places

that is environmentally adapted to drought.

The Hopi grow corn with no irrigation.

One day, our corn

will become very, very valuable to human survival.

My father said, "Son,

never, never let go of the corn."

"When I pass on,

carry on the way of the corn."

Crow--crow damage, but we still bring it in.

Everything is brought in.

The Hopi woman and man say that even this little one here

is special because every corn seed has life.

And I'll plant these. Yeah.

I'll plant this.

We don't throw them away.

Wow. We take care of them.

They may be calling me daddy and say,

"Daddy, I'm glad I'm here with you,"

you know, 'cause these are my children.

In the womb, human people are seeds.

We see the seeds being planted

into the womb of the Mother Earth.

Woman: I was very, very fortunate when I was a child.

There was a--a fantastic tree.

My tree began from a tiny little seed...

and I spent hours and hours up in the branches

of that tree.

And how magic that it could actually grow into a big tree.

That tree is still in the garden today.

Goodall: Seeds are so crafty.

There is a power. It's a magic.

To me, it's magic. It's a life force so strong.

Goodall: There are seeds that rely on fire.

There are seeds that tangle up in the hair of an animal.

They get carried for miles.

[Dog howls]

Goodall: There are seeds that can't germinate

unless they pass through the gut of an animal.

Goodall: Darwin was amazed

that a seed grew after it had been 21 hours

in the stomach of an owl.

[Owl hoots]

Man: A seed is a doorway

between the life of the old plant

and its gift to the new plant.

Man: Our teachers are the plants,

and they're teaching us that they have to

sacrifice themselves in order to be able

to give something to the next generation.

It's a form of reincarnation.

[Overlapping chatter]

Man: Come on in.

Come on in.

Hello, hello. Come on in.

Welcome to my humble home.

Oh, my gosh. This is amazing.

Check it out, check it out.

This is how we roll. That's why they call me--

the corn--they call me the corn hippie.

Gosh, this is unbelievable.

There's so much corn here. I mean--

Right here in-- in these bags right here,

this one has, uh, 87 different--

Oh, my gosh. What in the hell is this?

87 different kinds of corn from Urubamba Valley.

Oh, my God.

This is from the Sacred Valley.

I get certified with the phytosanitary

from the Peruvian government, and once we get it certified,

then we're, uh, ready to ship it wherever we want to send them.

And some of the beans. That's astounding.

Look at that fava.

Joe Simcox, voice-over: For all the crazy people like me

who sit there at night and look at bags of beans,

it leaves us a mystery.

This is so precious.

No one even has an idea

how much this-- they're like jewels.

They look like polished agates. Look at this one.

Joe Simcox, voice-over: Must be artistic genius of nature

that allows this to happen.

I got to sleep with this, my best friend right there.

Joe Simcox, voice-over: When I was six years old,

my parents asked me what I wanted for my birthday,

and I said, "Well, I want squash."

I didn't want a G.I. Joe and I didn't want a baseball bat.

I wanted squash, and I wanted those

because I wanted to save the seeds and grow them.

Voice-over: My seeds are my kitchen table.

My seeds are my way of sharing food

with people all over the world.

I've been to over a hundred countries,

collecting thousands and thousands of seeds.

Here from Bolivia, looking like a speckled robin's egg,

this bean here from Tanzania,

one that's coming from Zimbabwe,

variety raised by the West Virginia hillbillies,

and this exquisitely sculptured seed

of a Trichosanthes gourd from Vietnam.

The seed is a time capsule.

It's preserving things from the past,

but it's also bringing things for the future.

And this is, uh...

Voice-over: I feel I have an obligation to the world,

whether that's unbalanced or not,

to bring this appreciation

to as big a swath of humanity as possible.

This tiny little, skinny tree with really large leaves

is in the cacao family,

the same plants that produce chocolate,

and this is just a distant relative of cacao

that still hasn't been commercialized.

Voice-over: What if there's all kinds of other seeds

in nature that have the potential for food production...

Way down there! Oh, oh, oh.

Feel the end of it? Yeah.

[Water sloshes]

You hold them?

This is what we just harvested.

Where, there? Right here?

OK, this is called pichariña,

and it's for being used on cuts and sores,

and it almost has the look of iodine.

Voice-over: There's about 300,000 species

of plants on the planet.

We come down to 30,000 different edible plants.

You put them in your mouth like this,

you just kind of suck on them, and...

120 are used on a really regular basis...

and most of humanity subsists on a mere ten--

beans,

corn,

wheat,

barley,

and rice--

virtually nothing compared to the bigger picture.

We should put particular attention

to the seeds of wild plants

and figure out how we can get those into cultivation

because they're a part of the biodiversity heritage

that will feed the world.

Pick them out of there, Patrick.

Joe Simcox: Back in 1700s,

Thomas Jefferson wanted

to get seeds of risotto rice,

and it was thanks to slyness that he was able to

carry out some of this contraband seed

and raise it near Monticello in the New World.

McDorman: In the 1890s,

over a billion packets

of seed were distributed for free

to farmers around the country.

The American Seed Trade Association hired

the very first lobbyist to stop the federal seed giveaway,

as they called it.

By 1924,

the federal government seed program would cease.

Man: These great industrialists said, "The only way we can

"really make profit on American agriculture

is to invent a seed that they can't save."

McDorman: And that gave birth

to the hybrid seed industry.

Bonsall: Farmers took it for granted

that we go to a shelf in the store to buy our seeds.

A profound change 'cause seed is the beginning of all of it.

If you're relying on someone else for your seed,

then it's like you're relying for someone else on your soul

or something; this is, like-- this is where it all starts.

To not control that part of it is a major abdication of control

and responsibility, and yet we did it wholesale.

It destroyed the natural seed banks

and the seed practices of the farmers.

Hybrid corn was the atom bomb of agriculture.

Man: Right after the Second World War,

the Green Revolution starts in Mexico.

When you hear about the Green Revolution,

the people sometimes think, well, you know, that's about

windmills and, you know,

tofu-powered sandals or whatever it is.

The "green" in the Green Revolution

was never about environmental consciousness.

The "green" was meant to be the opposite of a red revolution.

This is about developing kinds of seed that matter

for large-scale commercial farmers, wherever they are,

to provide cheap food so that people would remain capitalism

and not riot and become communist.

The Green Revolution was taking this rich knowledge

of peasant farming that evolved over millennia

and tossing it into the dustbin of history,

replacing it with, uh, modern industrial agriculture.

Shiva: The seeds of the Green Revolution--

what are called the "miracle varieties"--

they were bred for taking up more chemicals.

The hungry industry of war chemicals,

wanting to deploy these chemicals as agrichemicals,

trying to push chemicals into agriculture.

Hayes: Ninety percent of the seed

that we use to grow our food is owned by chemical companies,

by pesticide and pharmaceutical companies.

Now there's a huge conflict of interest.

When the chemical companies own the seeds,

they not only want you dependent on the seed as a farmer,

but they also want you dependent on their chemicals.

We use 80 million pounds a year of atrazine

just in the U.S.

Atrazine leads to promoting breast cancer.

It's associated with miscarriages and birth defects.

We should have learned this lesson way back with DDT,

and we're just learning it over and over

and over and over and over again.

[Woman singing in Hawaiian]

Voice-over: I live in a community that consists

of pure native, Hawaiian-native speakers.

Native Hawaiians had this incredible agricultural system,

able to sustain three times today's population.

Well, now, I would say, um, the biotech industry,

um, these chemical corporations are king in Hawaii.

Biotech chemical seeds companies came in

and took over agriculture.

It alarmed me.

There's hundreds and hundreds of acres

where these chemical corporations test their seed.

Then I started to experience, um,

very bad allergies, migraines,

and illnesses, just not being able to get over colds.

My doctor said, "Oh, you have full-blown adult asthma."

What I started to see, that...

the farmers were spraying pesticides.

They are spraying things at night while we're sleeping.

My two daughters wake up with, um...

blood-soaked pillows.

Eighteen tons of restricted pesticides

being dumped

right next to schools and neighborhoods.

I'm a teacher at Waimea Canyon Middle School

for the past 18 years.

There's, uh, ag lands adjacent to our campus.

It is literally a hundred yards

upwind of our school.

That's the field that they were spraying,

and we can actually feel the mist.

During P.E., a cloud

of gases came over them,

and kids just started dropping.

[Car horn honking]

Hurst: There was chaos on campus.

It was--it was horrific.

There wasn't enough room in the health room.

About 140 children were seeking assistance.

[People shouting indistinctly]

Hurst: Teachers came together and stood up.

"Stop poisoning our children."

Monsanto, Dow, DuPont in--in Hawaii and elsewhere,

they've got a blank check to experiment with any kind

of chemical they want on these test plots.

You've got the most toxic insecticides,

virtually unregulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Here, you have agricultural policy

absolutely linked at the hip to the biotechnology industry

and to Monsanto's interests.

The revolving door between Monsanto and government

is going so fast, it--it's almost dizzying.

Cummings: The corporations, they said,

"We want to really own these seeds.

We want patents on life."

Kimbrell: Monsanto takes one gene out of tens

of thousands of genes, changes that, and says,

"No, no, now we own the whole plant."

It's one of the most extraordinary giveaways,

giving corporations the natural reproduction

of all life forms, saying, "You can make a profit

on every one of those reproductions."

So they don't just own the seeds,

they own all of the offspring of those seeds

and patent them forever.

Kuwanwisiwma, voice-over: The threat is there

by conglomerates that-- to patent our seeds,

legally saying they own it because they were the first

to patent it.

We're the custodians of this knowledge and the corn,

and how dare others take it away?

Brascoupe: Once these corns get contaminated,

there's no way you can breed it out.

The only safe thing to do is actually incinerate--

you know, I wouldn't feed it to animals,

I wouldn't compost it because it's in the DNA.

It's an abuse to seeds and to us as indigenous people.

Goodall: Genetically modified plants.

It's doing something which isn't natural

in the plant world.

Goodall: Genes from a completely different species

are being introduced into these plants,

and the plant fights.

The plant is not happy to receive an alien species.

Man: The genetic engineers can take genes from the pig

and force it into the tomato.

They've taken genes from spiders and put it into goats.

They've taken human genes and put it into rice and corn.

Kimbrell: You can't see the difference

between genetically engineered corn

and non-genetically engineered corn.

This is not seeable by a consumer.

Independent scientists were beginning to see indications

that consuming genetically engineered foods

could have kidney and liver damage, uh,

we're seeing possible reproductive issues

in laboratory animals, and now we're beginning to see problems

that could come from them.

Kimbrell: Wheat was the holy grail

for companies like Monsanto.

If they could have had all the wheat in the United States

be genetically engineered, that was really the holy grail.

Man: Wheat farmers decided we did not want them

to release a genetically modified wheat.

We don't have to take the chance

to fool with the genetic modified plants.

And we said, "No, we don't want it,"

and now we've got it.

Kimbrell: We thought this had been put to bed,

and we thought those wheat seeds had been destroyed.

Apparently not.

Man: The Department of Agriculture have told us,

"Don't worry. We can keep these seed trials confined."

And time and time again, they have failed to do so

and they have escaped.

Justesen: Once you take that stuff out of the laboratory,

there's a thousand things that can go wrong

that lets that seed get away.

Man 2: As far as a duck can fly, they eat seed,

and they excrete that seed, and that seed grows,

in a place where it wasn't intended.

You can't pull it back,

you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.

International wheat markets shut down for months.

That cost farmers hundreds of millions of dollars.

The USDA opened an investigation;

they have never been able to discover how

the genetically engineered wheat got in the farmers' field.

Tester: If our wheat is contaminated,

I'm out of business.

Shiva: When seeds started to become

a patented property sold by corporations,

you've destroyed seed freedom.

Monsanto started to buy up Indian seed companies.

Sixty Indian seed companies can only sell Monsanto's seeds.

The companies will take video vans into the villages.

Shiva: They had every Indian epic,

and they would very cleverly sell the seeds.

So Hanuman is carrying white gold--

the seeds of Monsanto.

So when Hanuman comes as a salesman of Monsanto,

they believe in them.

So that was the first strand

through which they took over.

Then they also told the farmer,

"Why are you using these old seeds? Sell them to us."

In one season,

this thing they call seed replacement

has destroyed the entire native seed supply.

You have a seed dictatorship established.

Then the farmer can't get out.

We could have very, very large-scale famine,

but unlike all famines of the past,

no resurrection because every famine of the past,

seed was always there.

This time's famine will be based

on a seed famine.

[Geese honking]

[Moos]

[Crying]

[Man speaking native language]

Shiva: We have lost 270,000 farmers

to suicide.

Voice-over: The future of Hawaii is all at stake.

Everything I love is being threatened.

[Barca speaks indistinctly]

...has got to go!

Barca: Monsanto has got to go!

[Speaks Hawaiian]

Voice-over: I'm fighting for the whole island.

[Speaking Hawaiian]

[All respond in Hawaiian]

Barca, voice-over: Say something or die.

[Speaks Hawaiian]

[All respond in Hawaiian]

Barca: 6,000 people,

there out of the love of their heart,

for our children, for our land.

Chun: These chemical corporations occupy lands

that are--are considered very sacred to Native Hawaiians.

Our land, our aina, um,

and everything that comes from it,

that's our ancestor.

There really will be nothing left for our children

if no one is willing to speak up.

I met with the chemical companies.

They would say, "No, we're not experimenting with pesticides,"

and they'd tell me, "This is safe,

there's nothing wrong with this stuff."

"Could you tell me what you're spraying?"

And they refused to--to tell me.

Then the more these companies would lie to me,

I had to do something,

and that's when we started piecing Bill 2491 together.

Could any of you disclose to me the amount

of general-use pesticides that you use on an annual basis?

Hooser: I asked you an hour ago

how much general-use pesticides

you're using, and you said no

with your silence.

I would say that I don't think I

would want to comply...

Hooser: OK.

Man: ...with the bill as is.

Woman: My second son here

was born with an extremely rare heart defect.

Our son was dying.

All I know is that while pregnant,

I took every precaution to rai--

to--to grow a healthy baby inside of me.

By not passing this bill, you're telling me

I don't have the right to know.

If I had known, I would have chosen not to expose

my unborn child as I innocently worked

day in and day out in Kekaha.

My son has a condition called gastroschisis.

Basically, the stomach's on the outside.

[Crying] I just--I don't blame anybody,

but I just want to stop the poisoning!

Bring a baby into the world

that's got to get cut open right away!

This is--children don't deserve this.

[Shouts in Hawaiian]

The trust is gone for these companies.

The trust is gone.

And I don't know how they're going to gain the trust back,

other than backing this bill and working with the community.

Hooser: They are suing the county of Kauai

for the right to spray poisons next to schools,

and these are the largest companies in the world,

so we're going to have, uh, a huge battle.

Crowd chanting: OMG, GMO...

Man: They're fighting for a profit!

We're fighting for our lives!

[Cheering and applause]

And those who fight for their lives

do not give up, do not let down!

Never say no!

Andrew Kimbrell: 64 countries around the world have some form

of labeling of genetically engineered foods.

United States does not.

Monsanto and the other companies are so frightened of labeling

because once people have a choice,

why would they choose a product that only offers them risks

and no benefits?

Shiva: No one said, "Give me G.M. food" anywhere.

This has never been voted for

by any community anywhere in the world.

Americans are being denied the right to know.

Shiva, voice-over: Took inspiration from Gandhi.

Gandhi had dealt with the smaller imperialism

of the British by taking out the spinning wheel,

and he said, "We will be free. We will spin our own cloth."

And I said, "We will save our own seed."

The seed will be the spinning wheel of our times.

Shiva: We have launched a campaign this year,

a--a global alliance for seed freedom.

Shiva, voice-over: We need to protect the diversity,

integrity, and freedom of life.

Give seed its own freedom

so that we as humans can have our freedom.

Shiva, voice-over: Our community seed banks

are both the networks of farmers

as well as the distribution network

for moving seed wherever it's needed.

[Conversing in native language]

Shiva, voice-over: More than 110 community seed banks

have started.

If there's a drought, getting drought-resistant seed;

if there's a flood, getting flood-resistant seed.

So these are seeds of hope.

These are seeds that do not lock you into debt.

[Applause, laughter, and cheering]

Joe Simcox: You know, there's that, uh,

Garth Brooks song, "The Rodeo"?

Well, for me, the rodeo is going out into the wilderness

and finding things to eat.

It's like an obsession that never ends.

Big, huge treasure hunt.

Voice-over: When people say, "How do we feed a hungry world?"

what about the wild things?

Man: The devil's claw.

We don't want to get the sap.

Holy moley!

This is a male plant,

so this baby is pollinating somebody else!

Let's see who it's pollinating!

Look at it, man! Look at the little watermelons!

I've been waiting to get these seeds

for probably 15 years,

and you would not imagine

that this would grow out in the desert.

So a seed in this case is extremely precious,

and what does that mean? It's worth as much as gold.

This is called a Gemsbok cucumber,

and these are one of the treasures of the desert.

It should be edible; now, if they're green,

what I've heard is they're gonna burn the crap out of your mouth.

You gonna try the first one?

Do we have a spoon?

Oh, look at that. OK.

Sweet?

What's it taste like?

Tastes terrible.

Does it taste bad?

Yeah. [Laughter]

[Man speaking foreign language]

Joe Simcox: Oh, he's got to poke a hole in them

so they don't explode.

Look at that! Ha ha ha!

[Overlapping chatter]

Joe Simcox: They're--they're the original botanists, aren't they?

I'm nothing; all I'm doing is learning it in books

and wanting to find out about it,

but they're knowing everything about it.

Joe Simcox: I figured that he said, probably.

There's a group effort digging up this monster.

[All cheering]

Joe Simcox, voice-over: This is the incredible marama bean.

Produces tubers up to 500 pounds.

About ten pounds? Easily.

Joe Simcox, voice-over:It is a future potential food crop

unlike any other on the planet.

[Applause and cheering]

The people in the Kalahari

depend upon this for their very survival,

and it doesn't need water for three years

and it can still survive.

You can go back eons and be, like, a hunter

walking out here when he was just surviving

with the elements.

Hey...

Joe Simcox, voice-over:Strange thing to get impressed with,

but I'm impressed.

We do have a beautiful world...

[Slurping]

and something like this, to me,

it's just a marvel of the planet we live on.

[Bonsall singing in foreign language]

I don't suppose anyone's up

for "The Merry Dwarfs," probably, right?

Man: Ja, I suppose. I don't know.

There's enough of us.

Timing is all important.

It's like with seed-saving; time is a big deal.

Ready? Let's hear it now.

♪ "Hi-ho," cried the merry dwarfs ♪

♪ Dwarf ♪ ♪ Short ♪

♪ It's off to the woods we-- ♪

♪ Dwarfs ♪ ♪ Are--mmm ♪

Seed-saving is all about sex,

and humans are all obsessed with sex,

even if it's rutabaga sex.

You can hire someone to come fix your plumbing.

I'm--I'm sure we know for a fact

you can hire someone to make love to your spouse,

for example, and they'll sure as hell

do a better job than you will.

But no, somehow we feel like,

"Nah, I really want to do that myself.

Some things are just too important."

This is right up there

with making love to your spouse.

So this is the office where, uh, where all my stuff is stored...

and I don't know quite how many thousands

of variety of samples of seeds are here.

Voice-over: I never can seem to get enough.

Rutabagas.

Voice-over: I've tried to level off in recent years

to something that I can handle.

Sometimes thought that if the house were to catch on fire,

and I had to do something very, very quickly, um,

hopefully I would first make sure that all the family

were out, safely out, but somehow, deep inside,

I'm afraid that I would probably rush in here,

smash out the windows, and start throwing boxes of seeds

out to the firefighters and hope they understood

what to do with them, don't turn the hoses on them

or something.

[Grunts]

[Sighs]

Voice-over: I see no end in sight,

except when I'm cremated.

That concerns me sometimes;

who will--who will take this over.

[Frog croaking]

[Cow bell ringing]

[Distant cow mooing]

[Drums beating]

[Rumbling]

Huh?

Ah!

McDorman: "Jack and the Beanstalk" is a true story.

The idea we all laughed at, that he would trade his pig

or his cow or whatever for a handful of beans

is, like, "What a silly thing is that?"

But if you think about the potential

of the self-replicating system that's in your hand

and what it could potentially produce,

we should all trade in everything we have,

for a handful of beans.

[Giant roaring]

[Jack whimpering]

Hello. Ha ha ha!

McDorman: I woke up one night, about 3:00 in the morning,

I sat up straight in my bed, and I went, "Ah! Seed school!"

Voice-over: We got to teach this stuff.

We got to open up a space and teach them what we know.

I'm going back to the 10,000-year-old way of doing it,

to have everybody everywhere

saving and storing and sharing their own seeds.

White: When we teach about seeds,

we rewrite ourselves back into that evolutionary dance

between plants and humans.

We initiate a whole new generation

of people who care for life,

since the seed's asking to be spoken for again.

As a Mohawk woman,

seeds embody the sense of hope

for the future, that we could create

something different, a new paradigm for our children.

We have to make that promise

to the corn, that we will--

we will nourish ourselves from it, but we will also give back.

We have the house and the blessing

of the Great Spirit, the Mother Earth,

all the protectors and the spirit from this land.

And they say, "You guys, they have to finish this seed bank."

Stone by stone or mud by mud,

we have this building.

The seed bank, it represents life.

All the seeds, they have memory.

They happy in this moment.

[All singing in native language]

Kuwanwisiwma: Those young men and women

are carrying on a tradition of our community,

and I see the young people happy

and the corn is happy,

the birds are happy

because that's who we are.

Chun: It's time for us to take back that mana'o.

It's so important, um, to get back to our food source...

take back that ability to self-sustain...

as our ancestors once did.

Barca: This food forest here

could feed hundreds of people.

We could be the self-sustainable

epicenter of the world, and there's no reason we can't be.

We can grow any fruit or vegetable on these islands.

Barca: As a team, as a family, we can accomplish anything.

And we went from this much diversity,

took 10,000 years to create down to this pinch,

with only 4% left, and we're right here, right?

And so we're gonna--we're waking up, we're gonna do this.

It's knowing that in each individual seed

is the potential to change it all back.

♪♪