We love this short film from Seed Matters and the Clif Bar Family Foundation. Mr. Seed, an animated organic seed with a foul mouth, thinks it’s f*cked up that in the US the same six chemical companies that produce most pesticides also control 63% of the seed market. We agree – totally f*cked up. Watch Mr. Seed:
From Seed Matters:
“What happens when the same chemical companies that make pesticides also produce the majority of our seeds? You get crops that need chemicals just to survive and a chemically dependent food system that is simply unsustainable. Nearly 50 years of this has resulted in more chemicals in our food and has endangered countless farm workers and rural communities all over the world. Here’s the truth about where your food comes from:
- Six chemical companies (aka The Big Six) control 63% of the seed market
- The Big Six fund most the seed research used to determine our food future. The combined R&D budgets of just these six companies is 15 times higher than all U.S. public spending on agricultural research.
- The Big Six have bought up hundreds of independent seed companies and used patents to take ownership of seed, a resource that historically had been an “open source” public commons.
- The chemical-seed industry has not improved our food, in fact it’s a major factor in the nutrient decline of 43 food crops.
- In 2005 alone, the human health costs of agricultural pesticide exposure in the U.S. were more than $15 billion.”
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