How hybrid seeds have become big business | DW Documentary

it is often said that fruits and vegetables used to taste much better and that they were healthier but were they really the academic agriculture de france in paris is a fountain of knowledge regarding old plant varieties [Music] between the old agronomy publications we find something special a nutritional composition table for fruits and vegetables it is 60 years old it lists the vitamin and mineral content of each and every variety and indeed over the last 60 years many fruits and vegetables seem to have lost some of their nutritional value so how did this happen [Music] [Music] thank you american biochemist donald davis lectures on the subject i'm here to tell you about an important problem that many people are not aware of nutritional declines in foods davis works at the university of austin texas and has analyzed the development of 43 vegetable varieties between 1950 and 1999 i think that most of these declines are caused by increases in yield when yields go up there's less nutrients per weight of the food a lot of agricultural scientists may not know about how big these effects are this is kind of an embarrassing of their they're always wanting to increase yield if modern breeding was causing increases in flavor and increases in nutrients i think they would talk about it a lot more the tomato is one of the fruits that has lost a lot of nutrients looking back it is clear that this has to do with the varieties as well as the seeds farmers all over the world choose their seeds from brochures like this the suppliers are agricultural groups such as syngenta basf and dao the sales arguments are based on size shape color and a high yield the abbreviation hf1 or f1 is important here it means first generation hybrid the breeding of hybrids works as follows take the plant of a variety that for example has large but two pale tomatoes cross it with another variety whose fruits are beautifully red but much too small from this cross pollination a hybrid is created a plant that contains genes from both the large pale tomato and the small red one from as early as the 1920s scientists around the world have been using this technology their main goal to produce an indestructible tomato we know about crash tests for cars but for tomatoes [Music] only with the help of genetic engineering was this possible in 1994 the flavor saver tomato was launched in the usa one of the problems was that older tomato varieties spoil quickly scientists began looking for the eternal tomato [Music] their search led them to israel for more than 70 years farmers here have managed to grow fruit and vegetables in the middle of the desert at the hebrew university of jerusalem we meet one of the creators of the almost immortal tomato kahim rabinovic the 79 year old professor emeritus continues to develop perfect hybrid plants this is a breeding greenhouse so each plant is different and i say wow this plant it looks stronger than this one for instance and definitely more than this one we look for these differences in order to develop something which is better than the existing material the researcher and his team work at the university but on behalf of private companies their work is currently funded by the french seed producer boomerang it's owned by them i cannot i cannot give it to anybody else this is exclusive exclusive to them you're the only one that got into these greenhouse beside you no one can get it the two men are creating a tomato for southern europe here there is a big one look phil moreno looking uh to have a winning hybrid in the balkan market which have a fruit size around 300 grams a tomato as big as a grapefruit and it should grow horizontally the cluster which the flower are organized usually the cluster has three dimensions the fruits grow in every possible direction people like today what we call a fishbone cluster from packing point of view if you have three dimension it's very difficult to pack in a box when you have a two dimension you can put one on top of the other and it's much easier for the desired hybrid two single variety plants are crossed the flower of one is pollinated with the pollen of the other here the way it starts poland you need to come to the open flower this is what we call artificial bee actually you know what it is it's a electric toothbrush we just remove the brush and put a hook on top of it you can see the bottom you can see yellow yellow dust and in two days i will come with the pollen and i will make the pollination how many crossing you make for uh to have one hybrid at the end to make a commercial hybrid probably 400 400 like that 400 every year sometimes it's coming only from the third year so we you can go to uh huge numbers this is how haim rabinovic and his team after thousands of cross-pollinations created the eternal tomato in the late 1970s their invention revolutionized the world market where you begin to work on the long share of life because because of this waste of 40 percent of the of the yield before this mutation the limit was two three days four days at the most when we exported tomatoes to europe and we exported a lot more afterwards we used to fly it by airplanes because if it has to go by boat from israel to marseilles the tomato will be mushy nobody nobody will touch it to extend the shelf life the scientist uses a mutation he discovered by chance the purpose of this tomato is to disseminate the seed for next generation so the moment the seeds are ripe it will fall off the bush bump into the ground explode and all these juice will will run all over as far away from the mother plant as possible in order to conquer more territory we don't want it it's undesired trait for human beings and here we have a mutation that seemingly can provide a solution for the new hybrids the israeli researchers crossed plants of a classic tomato variety whose fruits rot after three days with mutated plants whose genes prevent the fruit from ripening the result a hybrid that decomposes much more slowly after harvesting we are going to do a simple experiment on the right a perfect flawlessly beautiful hybrid fruit and on the left a traditional farmer's tomato it is anything but perfect with yellow spotted skin and small floors now we just have to wait [Music] after three days both tomatoes are still firm and presentable after one week the farmer's tomato is unsellable the black spots indicate a deterioration and the hybrid unchanged even after two weeks the stem has come loose but that's not a flaw [Music] only after 25 days is the hybrid tomato deemed not fit to be sold as it developed mildew spots and loose skin the normal tomato now looks like this on the supermarket shelf only the hybrid is able to be displayed for three weeks [Music] but eternal youth has its price [Music] you can taste them tasteless the genes for uh inhibition ripening inhibition carry with them some negative traits for instance flavor the taste deteriorates very well less nutrient but i don't know because we never measured it only later in the 90s and the early 2000s we started looking into the quality traits i offered a project like that to many companies i even gave it a name i called it ace tomato why ace vitamin a c and e and i said it would be much healthier tomato we don't have it in supermarkets with variety the industries they don't care the industry the seed producers the israeli company hazira is one of the heavyweights in the seed market hazira earns millions with the eternal tomato in 2003 hazira was bought out by the multinational limagra group with an annual turnover of several billion euros [Music] following the acquisition of hazira limagra became one of the largest seed producers in the world in the middle of the negev desert the company is experimenting with new hybrid varieties yaron giras is the product manager responsible for the worldwide marketing of tomato seeds jael rosenfeld is the press officer this is for you and then you put those two this is our protocol for sanitation [Music] varieties are grown in this greenhouse [Music] i'm going to show you for example the tomatoes that we call it lamia this is a very famous tomato in turkey today is the green part of the tomatoes it's like a mustache you know there is a special gin for this mustache yes yes so you see very very nice color very firm tomato it's coming from the long shelf life family also um you mean it has a long shelf life jeans yeah jeans inside but there is a percentage of all your variety that has a long shelf i didn't calculate but i assumed today around the 50 50. long shelf life has a problem for the taste long shelf life in in for a long time we saw that it was influenced to reduce the taste of the tomato and now we are going back and try to increase the test again of the tomato jaron jiras wants to prove to us that durable tomatoes can also be delicious taste okay like a little bit um we said we said not all the tomato need to have taste because if you add olive oil and salt you don't need taste i tell you i i i know what is to make to me this is okay yeah okay there is a worse but for the market and for what they want this is okay what we're looking more and more is that to have a good color a good firmness and a good taste and the nutrients in tomato are still it's a small player in the market for cooking is hybrid breeding the main reason for the loss of nutrients in tomatoes [Music] southern france belgians one of the last traditional seed producers in france lives there jean-luc brawl does not produce hybrid tomatoes he creates what he calls old varieties [Applause] this is how we obtain the seeds the seeds stay on the bottom and the skin floats to the top everyone used to know this technique of producing seeds for themselves [Music] the farmers knew that the next harvest depended on the seeds and they were very careful when producing them you ate the tomatoes yourself but the seeds were always the most important thing today no farmer produces them anymore the big companies do that a dying tradition yes almost unorthodox in this greenhouse jean-luc cultivates only the old farm varieties 100 nature it seems a bit wild and chaotic because i only have a small area of land to work with to make the most of the space i squeeze the tomatoes in close together only working with soil and without chemicals i don't use any third-party products at all in this greenhouse i grow about 20 different varieties of tomatoes what do they all have in common no hybrids no cross-pollination but do these old varieties contain more nutrients than modern hybrids we decide to analyze them both these are jean-luc's tomatoes and here is a similar looking hybrid from the supermarket we send both off on the same day to a state laboratory to evaluate the ingredients [Music] three weeks later the results are available in the case of the hybrid tomato all five values they compared are much lower the hybrid contains 63 percent less calcium 29 less magnesium and 72 percent less vitamin c the hybrid contains less than half of the antioxidant lycopene and less than half the health promoting secondary plant compounds of polyphenols than the farmer's tomato it's consistent with the idea that there is a relationship between taste and nutrient content this was published by professor clay at the university of florida and he made the observation in this paper that many of the flavor components of tomatoes are derived from human nutrients when you eat a tomato that has good flavor that means that it probably also had a good amounts of the nutrients that were used to make that flavor it's a consequence of hybridization it's consistent with all of the other evidence breeders select for yield but they're also looking for other economic traits and in the process of making that change they also caused a change in the chemistry of the tomato lemongrass the parent company of hezira is a global player in the seed business in paris the journalist elise meets the vice president for lima cross international affairs you are part of the management of a globally operating seed producer have you ever analyzed the nutrient content of your tomatoes it depends on the growing conditions not on the variety so this problem is not a concern of yours i didn't say that the nutritional quality of our product is a very important issue for us you know he invented a tomato that lasts for three weeks he explained to us that the longevity gene blocks the ripening process of the fruit and affects the development of the nutrients i stand by what i've told you i think the tomato growers have the greatest influence on the anatomy of the tomato and the responsibility of dealing with this is theirs as they have the most significant impact f1 hybrids have another huge advantage for seed suppliers their seeds can only be used once if you plant seeds from the fruit of a hybrid tomato the mixture of jeans becomes a game of chance the next generation may produce tiny small or rapidly rotting fruit this is why farmers have to buy new tomato seeds every year [Music] a profitable market for producers like hezera in israel the small seeds are incredibly expensive much is one kilo of seeds of this kind of tomato ah this kind of tomato today can reach the 400 000 euro what four kilograms of seeds what 400 000 euro or more yes you can buy a house with this i've heard that the tomato seeds the more capital gain of all the seeds yes the margin our margin is the highest that we can get in tomato why because it's expensive expensive seeds and there is a lot of demands so it's a yeah it's a good business for us if it's not we are not here four hundred thousand euros for one kilo of these yellow cherry tomato seeds normal tomatoes cost around 60 000 euros per kilo more even than gold and when you produce the the seeds like we told you today in 22 different countries something all over the world and like which kind of country like like israel like in thailand like in chile within spain in india and many places [Music] seeds that are more valuable than gold produced in low-wage countries where labour costs little [Music] our next port of call is india this brochure is the reason for the long journey soiled seeds an investigation by the dutch human rights organization ariza they claim that 16 of the workers in the seed business are children under 14 years of age [Music] for example in the indian state of karnataka the remote villages are among the poorest in the country [Music] the climate in south india is perfect for growing vegetables every year 160 000 kilos of tomato seeds are exported from here all global players in the seed market have a presence in india basf dupont bayer monsanto syngenta and limagra ravi raj works on behalf of ariza in this region and fights against the exploitation of child labour i took these the day before yesterday around 12 million children in india work under the worst conditions since 2016 it has been forbidden for children under 14 to work [Music] from a distance and count the workers ravi says that the seeds of hybrid tomatoes are mostly collected by children many children were working here but now the harvest is over the fields are almost empty but in a greenhouse we can see human silhouettes this company works for the multinational corporation syngenta based in switzerland about 10 women and girls are pruning tomato plants when the smallest of the girls sees us another worker signals that she should squat down how long were you at school up to the fifth grade now you don't go to school anymore no how old are you she's 17. and you i'm 18. why don't you go to school there are none here only the primary school how long have you been working for three years but she started before me and since when do you work since she left school at 11. this skill is supposed to be 17 we all find it hard to believe syngenta purchases its seeds from around 25 000 mostly smallhold farmers throughout india we ask the swiss multinational how it feels about child labour the answer sounds good but is non-specific syngenta complies with all labour laws the syngenta fair labour program promotes decent working conditions and opposes child labour children are cheap labour but there's another reason why they are so often used in seed production as the author of the report soiled seeds knows too well [Music] davoluri venkateswalu is an independent researcher and has been researching child labour in hybrid seed production for 15 years the hybridization activity is very very delicate it requires a lot of skills the children are preferred because they can do this repetitive activities very uh faster than adults and also they are more obedient we can say two children can do the work of three adults that is the kind of calculation farmers have obedient and fast the farmers depend on child labour because they are poorly paid by the corporations the farmers are struggling actually to have a good profit margin if they have to hire labor and pay good remediation to the workers the the margin will be very nominal or sometimes there won't be any margin for the farmers but not only children are exploited what is evident in karnataka only women work in the seed producing tomato fields the farmer charman explains this to us on his farm gowda gowda tomato for hm claws we have three varieties hm claws is a subsidiary of limagra the french seed producer has hundreds of farms under contract in the region she's cross-pollinating the plants right now bent eight hours a day the women pluck pollen from the flowers with tweezers beneath the scorching sun why are there no men working here men are more expensive we only hire them for cutting and to carry loads they cost 300 rupees per day women work for 200. [Music] a daily wage of less than 2 euros 50 is illegal even in india in karnataka the minimum wage in agriculture is 330 rupees around 4 euros a day [Music] these women only receive sixty percent of the legal minimum wage why do you work here because there is no other work right now normally we work in the rice fields and harvest rice but at the moment there is nothing except pollination is this work difficult [Music] yes my eyes are sore because we are so concentrated and i have a bad back it's hard work but we also have to earn a living we get 102 euros for a kilo of tomato seeds if we earned 26 euros more we could pay the women what they're asking for and still have a profit the farmers are breaking the law because they don't get an additional 26 euros per kilo lima grass sells the seed in europe for an average of 60 000 euros per kilo are the companies aware of this illegal practice we visit an indian location belonging to hm clause with a hidden camera at first it doesn't look good two guards stop us we're looking for um this company you are looking for cisco yes yes that's what what's up us what purpose we make a documentary about the seeds in karnataka europe means which country particularly a friends oh okay as we come from france like the parent company it seems to open doors we're allowed to talk to a manager the man phones his head office okay are you where are you because we have very strict information instruction from head office not to allow any people the team is surprised with the sudden offer of famous indian hospitality maybe okay this is where the seeds are dried before they are exported during the interview the manager admits he knows that his contract farmers are paying their workers below the legal minimum wage what is the salary for one worker 200 rupees okay for eight hours okay because some farmers say they have no less than two euros 50. the manager goes on to reveal that the company doesn't even pay its own people the minimum wage how much are paid in hm close farm just over three euros no one here is allowed to know how much the seeds are worth in europe what are the name of a tomato it is very [Music] is produced by this name back in paris does lima gran know about these practices are you familiar with this report soiled seeds i have it here yes it was written in 2015 and examined the problems of child labor and the exploitation of women and here on page six it says the proportion of children under 14 years of age is between 10.5 and 16.3 percent of all field workers working for lima graham first of all i can assure you clearly and unequivocally there is no child labor at the lima grass sites what about the subcontracted farmers who work for you in india can you assure us that there is no child labor there we've either this from 10 or 15 to less than one percent all measures are being taken to achieve this which measures contractual measures to ban child labor we continue to educate inform raise awareness and if necessary impose sanctions to prevent child labour in lima gras as much as possible [Music] next can we ever be 100 certain in a country like india probably not but our determination is unwavering in companies that work for you we have met women who are paid below the minimum wage 200 rupees per day instead of 330. what do you say to that i don't agree with this assertion you claim that the indian lima gray employees receive the legal minimum wage of 330 rupees per day in reality limagra pays its workers 300 a limagra manager has actually confirmed this wherever we operate limagra employees are paid according to the legal minimum wage or higher [Music] i take issue with your allegations it is almost impossible to avoid hybrid plants in 2020 60 of the world's commercial seeds were owned by four chemical giants [Music] bayer monsanto dow dupont syngenta and limagra [Music] biodiversity is not an issue for these corporations in 2009 an expert warned the world about this development olivier de shutter who until 2014 was the un's special rapporteur on the right to food 75 of agrobiodiversity has been lost as a result of the pressure towards the adoption of uniform improved variety we visit the shuttle in brussels the shuttle works in an international team of experts for sustainable food systems his message the world suffers less from hunger than from malnutrition the figure we have already lost 75 of plant varieties but biodiversity is not just a luxury for botanists it also helps to secure global food supplies we don't know what the future and climate change will bring which harmful insects and diseases will infest our plants we need the natural reserves of a diverse plant world if we're to cope with unforeseeable threats the plant business goes hand in hand with the pesticide business three of the four world leaders producing seeds also produce pesticides biomonsanto dao de paul and syngenta the farmers are always offered a complete package deal they're told that they will only get a good harvest with this pesticide or that fertilizer for example some seeds are developed that are resistant to certain active substances some seeds are like the trojan horse for agrochemicals more than four million tons of pesticides are sprayed on the earth every year [Music] at some point we will all eat the same thing from dakar to miami from paris to bangkok is that tomorrow's world for thousands of years we had a large quantity and variety of seeds and these seeds improved year after year with the harvests by farmers that were using methods that would now be considered today as being traditionally gradually specialist companies have begun to perform this process of selection and reproduction which in turn has put seeds on the market that can produce large quantities of genetically modified agricultural produce genetics the distribution of commercial seeds in which all rights are owned by a handful of major transnational companies means that agriculture will no longer be sustainable for many small farmers in developing countries and therefore we're going to see a gradual worldwide destruction of small-scale farms increasingly consumers and farmers are protesting they demand free seeds natural seeds that are not owned by the large agrochemical corporations in the south of france a resistance movement is gaining popularity [Music] the association cocopeli is situated in a remote valley anon der guiller heads the non-profit organization the aim is to protect traditional plants and forgotten vegetable varieties their seed collection includes over 2 400 vegetable varieties from beige cucumbers to orange swiss chard [Music] the range of colors is amazing due to the standardization of agriculture species have fallen down a genetic funnel most people for example think swiss chards are green and white but there's an incredible diversity of swiss chards all of the colors of the rainbow that we don't [Music] this is where we ship the parcels for the solidarity campaign seeds without frontiers every year we send hundreds of packages worldwide this is feedback from some of the projects we've supported from where virtually everywhere india central and south america asia countries where the population is dominated by the agrochemical and food industry multinationals as a result they sometimes quickly lose all their natural varieties sometimes in just one or two growing seasons by saving the old varieties and by growing traditional plants the farmers and consumers have the chance to choose an alternative to standardized fruit and vegetables and can choose food that is good for us as well as our planet [Music] you

Channel: DW Documentary

Views: 390,258

Rating: 4.834928 out of 5

Keywords: Documentary, Documentaries, documentaries, DW documentary, full documentary, DW, documentary 2020, documentary, seeds, seed monopoly, genetic modification, child labor, exploitation, nutrient deficiency, biodiversity, hybrid, hybrid seed production

Id: ljthwaFUW1k

Length: 42min 25sec (2545 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 29 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/mem_somerville]

ZOMG. I'm only 5min in, but the whole thing is a 3-card-monty game. They point at GMO, say the words genetic engineering, and then talk about stuff that has zero GMO relationship.

Does it use any facts later?

[u/nick9000]

It's a confusing mismash. Anyone seeing 'GMO' in the title who wishes to inform themselves on the subject will come away more confused than ever. Had they stuck to one subject (hybrids, child labour or GMO) and investigated that topic properly then there might have been some value making in this film.

The annoying thing is that DW documentary is generally a great channel for documentaries. In this case it seems that they've put out something by an independent filmmaker which is far below their usual standard.

[u/ChristmasOyster]

Mostly about hybrids. Worse, they don't seem to know much about hybrids. I saw their description of hybridization as 1) Take two different kinds of (in this case) tomatoes; 2) Use pollen from one kind to fertilize the ovaries of the other kind; 2) The resulting seeds are hybrid seeds.

​

I suppose there is some way you could define hybrids that way, but commercial hybrids are always limited to crossing two "pure strains" because otherwise the properties of the plants derived from the resulting seeds would not have predictable traits. They are not actually talking about hybrids as by their simple definition, because later they mention that the F1 generation has reliable traits and the subsequent generations do not.

I quit watching the video after a few minutes. for obvious reasons.

[u/mem_somerville]

Ha ha ha--they changed the name!