I can debate with my radical friends all day long, but nobody can challenge the fact that a sale of another million dollars to Wal-Mart helps to save the world. Pollan: Back around the turn of the last century, the average farmer could feed six or eight people. Now the average American farmer can feed 126 people, okay? These are the most productive humans that have ever lived. The changes down on the farm have been momentous and radical but invisible to most of us, 'cause who knows a farmer anymore? But their way of life has been revolutionized. Title: From Seed to the Supermarket Troy Roush, Vice President, American Corn Growers Association: Ten thousand years ago, farmers started saving their best seeds and planted again in the following year. That's how seeds have been developed. That's how corn was developed from a useless grass for the most part to the extremely productive plant it is today. Pollan: The idea that any corporation could own a food crop is a very new idea. It wasn't until the 1980s that the Supreme Court said you could patent life. And that opened the floodgates-- efforts to patent the most valuable parts of life, which is to say the crops on which we depend. Monsanto Corporation, St. Louis, Missouri Roush: Monsanto is a chemical company. They produced DDT, Agent Orange in Vietnam, and then they developed a product called "Roundup." We started hearing rumblings about genetically-engineered soybeans that could resist the application of Roundup. When the Roundup was sprayed over top of it, it killed every weed out there except for this Roundup Ready soybean. In 1996, when Monsanto began selling Roundup Ready soybeans, only 2% of soybeans in the U.S. contained their patented gene. By 2008, over 90% of soybeans in the U.S. contained patented gene. Monsanto’s I can remember when the first prohibition against seed saving came into being. Most farmers were just absolutely disgusted with the whole concept. It's been interesting over the course of eleven years to watch us go from utter contempt for the notion that we can't save our own seed to acceptance. Interviewer: What happens if a farmer saves the seeds?
I can debate with my radical friends all day long, but nobody can challenge the fact that a sale of another million dollars to Wal-Mart helps to save the world. Pollan: Back around the turn of the last century, the average farmer could feed six or eight people. Now the average American farmer can feed 126 people, okay? These are the most productive humans that have ever lived. The changes down on the farm have been momentous and radical but invisible to most of us, 'cause who knows a farmer anymore? But their way of life has been revolutionized. Title: From Seed to the Supermarket Troy Roush, Vice President, American Corn Growers Association: Ten thousand years ago, farmers started saving their best seeds and planted again in the following year. That's how seeds have been developed. That's how corn was developed from a useless grass for the most part to the extremely productive plant it is today. Pollan: The idea that any corporation could own a food crop is a very new idea. It wasn't until the 1980s that the Supreme Court said you could patent life. And that opened the floodgates-- efforts to patent the most valuable parts of life, which is to say the crops on which we depend. Monsanto Corporation, St. Louis, Missouri Roush: Monsanto is a chemical company. They produced DDT, Agent Orange in Vietnam, and then they developed a product called "Roundup." We started hearing rumblings about genetically-engineered soybeans that could resist the application of Roundup. When the Roundup was sprayed over top of it, it killed every weed out there except for this Roundup Ready soybean. In 1996, when Monsanto began selling Roundup Ready soybeans, only 2% of soybeans in the U.S. contained their patented gene. By 2008, over 90% of soybeans in the U.S. contained Monsanto’s patented gene. I can remember when the first prohibition against seed saving came into being. Most farmers were just absolutely disgusted with the whole concept. It's been interesting over the course of eleven years to watch us go from utter contempt for the notion that we can't save our own seed to acceptance. Interviewer: What happens if a farmer saves the seeds?
FoodIncTranscript_revised.docx