The title of the portrait of Anaelle Vallat
The scenes from the film “10 billion” by the German documentary filmmaker Valentin Thurner are not an isolated case. Hybrid seed for rice, millet, vegetables and cotton is widely used in India. Agrochemical companies rake in millions of dollars, while farmers sometimes run up high levels of debt to buy them. Fertilizers and pesticides are also expensive. They only recoup the money invested if they are lucky. If heavy rainfall floods the fields or droughts dry out the soil, they lose their harvest. Not so with the old varieties: Because the traditional seed has been bred over many generations, it is now much better adapted to the soil conditions and the increasingly frequent extreme weather conditions. The risk of crop failure is much lower.