Youtor
Saving Seeds from Climate Change
>> YOUR LINK HERE: ___ http://youtube.com/watch?v=LOFsG2lmGrE
Four companies control 82% of the world’s seeds. This farmers’ collective wants to build an alternative seed economy. • Growing up in the early aughts, California farmer Scott Chang-Freeman saw firsthand how small seed companies got gobbled up by massive conglomerates. Today, just four companies — Bayer, Syngenta, BASF and Corteva — own two-thirds of the world’s seed and pesticide industry. By monopolizing patents for certain seeds, these companies prevent other farmers from breeding and exchanging them, suing those who do. • “Seeds are a major part of the agricultural economy that often get overlooked,” Chang-Freeman, 30, said. “Just like how people shop at farmer’s markets to support local farms, I hope that they start to see seeds in the same way.” • Chang-Freeman is growing seeds that aren’t patented, like the Japanese momotaro tomato, a heat-tolerant dark-pink fruit with a concentrated sweetness. His goal is to not only make these seeds available to other farmers, it’s also to adapt them to the current climate crisis and tap into age-old farming traditions by replicating plots and rotating crops to test millenary breeding methods. • His work is a collaborative effort with Second Generation Seeds, a collective of dozens of Arab and Asian American farmers who are growing ancestral plants and adapting them for various climates to develop a seed economy led by small farmers. Its fellowship program supports farmers from New York to Hawaii with skill-sharing workshops, financial assistance and technical guidance. The collective’s mission is to grow a decentralized seed network to service consumers and small farms, and ensure that so-called heritage plants can acclimate and survive in the 21st century. So far, they’ve successfully grown and sold 16 heritage seed varieties through their online seed shop, selling out their offerings every season. • Founder Kristyn Leach said that preserving and adapting ancestral crops from Asia and North Africa to U.S. soil is a powerful symbol of survival. “By saying that we will help our plants evolve, we’re liberating people from the sense that preservation has to be rooted in trauma or fear,” she said. • Check out our blog post here: https://nbcuacademy.com/asian-seeds • Subscribe: / @nbcuacademy • Sign up for our FREE newsletter: https://nbcuacademy.com/newsletter/ • NBCU Academy is a free innovative, multiplatform journalism training and development program designed to prepare college-level students for a career in the media industry. NBCU Academy also offers dynamic learning experiences and educational content to help early career professionals as well as seasoned journalists gain new journalism and media skills and level up in the fast-paced news industry. • Follow us on social media! • LinkedIn: / nbcu-academy • X: / nbcuacademy • Instagram: / nbcuacademy • Facebook: / nbcuacademy • TikTok: / nbcuacademy • #journalism #news #education
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