Killing Seeds: Gene Giants Mandate New Serf Age (2001)
DVD | Color 45 min | Full Screen. Directed by Kai Krueger & Bertram Verhaag Produced by DENKmal-Film GmbH
ISBN 978-0-8026-0206-0
Price:$26.95*Home Video includes Public Library Circulation rights.
ISBN 978-0-8026-0207-7
Price:$249.95**Academic and Institutional price including Public Performance rights for non-paying audiences.
Consumers Reviews
SummaryIn Canada's wheat belt, farmer Percy Schmeiser was sued by the agrochem and seed producing multinational Monsanto for damages worth a quarter million dollars on the grounds of a patent violation, because wind and birds had carried Monsanto's genetically modified canola onto his fields. Schmeiser responded with a countersuit, citing libel and contamination of his property. After making his case public, Schmeiser was recruited by farming, environmental and civil rights organisations to travel around the world as a leader of opposition to Monsanto. His worldwide message: Stand up in defense of your own seed supply!
In Europe, farmer Klaus Buschmeier rounds up fellow farmers to revolt going against the German Farmers' Association. They are angry because the Association had made an agreement with plant breeders to charge seed-saving fees--an act perceived as betrayal.
In order to enforce gene technology, agrochem multinationals have swallowed up most of the leading plant breeders. Gene technology does not stop hunger in the world, but it does promote the sales of chemicals. Gene technology makes crops resistant to pesticides, and seeds are manipulated to germinate only once. The farmer may bring up the seed, treat crops with chemicals and sell them, but no more. Every farmer's attempt to save his own seed or do his own breeding is either forbidden or comes with fees.
This film exposes the efforts of the multinationals to force farmers into dependence on their "terminator technology." The farmers' efforts to save the seeds they have sown is pointless, since none of the seeds will reproduce. In the eyes of Schmeiser, Buschmeier and others, this monopoly has reduced the farmers to serfdom.
