Seeds of Resistance: The Fight to Save Our Food Supply

Ten thousand years after humans figured out how to stop wandering and plant crops, veteran investigative journalist Mark Schapiro plunges into the struggle already underway for control of seeds, the ground-zero ingredient for our food. Three-quarters of the seed varieties on Earth in 1900 had become extinct by 2015. In Seeds of Resistance (Hot Books), Schapiro takes us onto the frontlines of a struggle over the seeds that remain, one that will determine the long-term security of our food supply in the face of unprecedented climate volatility. Schapiro reveals how more than half of all commercially traded seeds have fallen under the control of just three multinational agrichemical companies. At just the time when scientists tell us we need a spectrum of options to respond to climatic changes, thousands of seed varieties are being taken off the market and replaced by the companies’ genetically engineered or crack-baby seeds, addicted to chemical pesticides and herbicides from the day they are planted. Seeds of Resistance lifts the lid on the struggle, largely hidden from public view until now, over the earth’s most important resource as conditions on the earth shift above our heads and beneath our feet.