A documentary by SeedSavers – Our Seeds: Seed Blong Yumi

A 57 minute documentary by SeedSavers on traditional diets and how they are grown and eaten in eleven countries.

Our Seeds: Seed Blong Yumi

A small crew comprising Seed Savers directors, Michel Fanton and Jude Fanton, and occasionally a local soundperson took a hundred and sixty hours of footage in eleven countries: Spain, France, Italy, India, Sri Lanka, China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands.

There are interviews of farmers and expert commentators and documented seed saving, farming methods and cultural activities in both first world and tribal locations. Peasants in advanced countries, such as Taiwan, Spain, France and Italy share the same sentiments as indigenous Pacific farmers when it comes to traditional varieties.

Our Seeds: Seeds Blong Yumi

“Our Seeds: Seeds Blong Yumi” is a fifty-seven minute film made for Pacific audiences that celebrates the diversity of plants, empiric seed saving practices and diverse farming cultures around the world. The film explores the relationship between traditional biodiversity and traditional culture in the wide-ranging locations and shows that there are the same problems and solutions in each of them.

It is a David and Goliath story where resilience and persuasive logic triumph over seemingly invincible corporate agribusiness.

Reasons for the film

Today indigenous farmers around the world are facing increasing pressure from agribusiness corporations that push their low-diversity seed stock. Many of these varieties require high external inputs such as pesticides and chemical fertilisers.

Pacific islanders are facing the same great challenges to their way of life, their culture and their traditional cultivation methodologies. They fall into the trap of replacing resilient seed crop varieties with modern hybrids and the innumerable varieties of root staples with imported low quality starch such as white rice, biscuits and noodles.

In screening and promoting “Our Seeds: Seeds Blong Yumi” we seek reverse this trend. What better way to demonstrate value than by celebrating indigenous seed keepers in a film to be seen by themselves?

In our experience Pacific islanders easily make the connection between biological diversity and cultural diversity. We enjoy their “savoir faire” and ancestral dexterity. This features strongly in the film.

Content of the Film

The film seeks to introduce to people of the Pacific the varied people who save seeds, standing at the source of humanity’s diverse food heritage. We show the importance of a broad genetic base of diversity in our food for reasons of disease resistance, cultural preservation, nutrition, taste and enormous ensuing conviviality. We show how important is the genetic diversity these farmers hold to the whole world and the future of food.

A small crew comprising Seed Savers directors, Michel Fanton and Jude Fanton, and occasionally a local soundperson took a hundred and sixty hours of footage in eleven countries: Spain, France, Italy, India, Sri Lanka, China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands.

There are interviews of farmers and expert commentators and documented seed saving, farming methods and cultural activities in both first world and tribal locations. Peasants in advanced countries, such as Taiwan, Spain, France and Italy share the same sentiments as indigenous Pacific farmers when it comes to traditional varieties. Likewise there are developed instructive motion graphics and a rich sound track using both indigenous and western music. Most of the music comes from our footage.

The audio options are original English soundtrack and Pacific Pigin (a melange of Bislama of Vanuatu, Tok Pisin of PNG and Solomons Pigin). Subtitle options are English and French.

We encourage viewers to work in solidarity with indigenous farmers around the world to restore traditional farming and plants to their rightful place as highly important assets of local communities and indigenous peoples. We encourage the further development of local seed saving groups and seed exchanges.

Distribution

The final product of this project will be 1 000 DVDs that will be distributed for free to tribal schools, colleges, churches, hospitals and non-government agencies in the Pacific. The intention is for these agencies to show the film to their constituencies out in the villages. The premiere of the film will be at the Pacific Arts Festival in American Samoa. We will also travel to Western Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands this year to screen the film and train community workers to take it to the villages for screening. We are providing work papers that will allow these community workers to apply the lessons of the film to their current challenges and to inventory their unique food plant assets and to start their own local seed organisation or network.

Into the future

We will make continuing efforts to tell the stories of the lives of traditional seed guardians and their importance on the world stage.

Seed Savers Foundation is first and foremost an educational organisation. Seed Savers’ mission has been to help traditional seed guardians hold their farming traditions in high esteem. We have produced handbooks and manuals, run courses and trained interns to help gardeners and farmers in several countries share and preserve their seeds and farming knowledge. Seed Savers has helped to establish local seed networks in several dozen countries, with a hundred around Australia. Now the message will be spread through film.

Film clips can be found at youtube.com/seedsavers and our website: www.seedsavers.net

[Note: “seed” in this document is used for the broader meaning of propagule, including tubers, cuttings, rhizomes, bulbs and scions.]