Seeds of Profit

Director: Linda Bendali
France, 2019, 50', HDD, color
French, English, Kannada with Turkish and English subtitles

Sixty years of producing standardized fruit and vegetables and creating industrial hybrids have had a dramatic impact on their nutritional content. In the past 50 years, vegetables have lost 27% of their vitamin C and nearly half of their iron. Through multiple hybridizations, scientists are constantly producing redder, smoother, firmer tomatoes. But in the process, it has lost a quarter of its calcium and more than half of its vitamins. The seeds that produce the fruits and vegetables we consume are now the property of a handful of multinationals, like Bayer, and Dow-Dupont, who own them. These multinationals have their seeds produced predominantly in India, where workers are paid just a handful of rupees while the company has a turnover of more than 2 billion euros. A globalized business where the seed sells for more than gold. According to FAO, worldwide, 75% of the cultivated varieties have disappeared in the past 100 years. With the loss of nutrients and privatization of life, Seeds of Profit reveals the industrialists’ great monopoly over our fruit and vegetables