The image on this card will hopefully inspire good nutrition. It started with a kernel of wheat. Then I started thinking about how the nutrients found in plants are so important for brain function and overall good health. Then I thought about how cauliflower looks like a brain. Voila! A cauliflower brain with a wheat kernel as the deep structures in the brain and the cauliflower stem as the brain stem.
I was inspired to draw a seed after watching the 2016 documentary Seed: The Untold Story. This documentary tells the story of how the loss of genetic diversity of seeds may be an even greater threat to earth and humanity than the extinction of animal species. According to this documentary, “94% of our seed diversity has disappeared.”1 Thanks to just a few individuals world wide, some seeds have been stored for posterity
In the 1990’s a very large multinational agriculture/pharmaceutical company started genetically engineering seeds to make them resistant to the pesticides and weed killer this company was producing. This company also produced hybrid seeds that could not be used for reseeding which meant that the seeds could not be used from a year’s harvest to seed future plantings. Historically, farmers have shared seeds from harvests with each other allowing for biodiversity of plants. There have been horrific stories of farmers becoming hopelessly in debt because they were forced to purchase seeds year after year instead of saving seeds. Farmers who attempted to circumvent this system by buying and selling seeds the traditional way were frequently sued by this large corporation and forced to cease and desist. There have also been issues with this company’s GMO plants ending up on organic farms. Seeds don’t know property boundaries when carried by the wind. Organic farms cannot grow GMO plants.
There are seed arks and seed stores around the planet. Thanks to the foresight of many farmers and indigenous peoples, some seeds have been saved for posterity. One of the most famous stores is the Svalbard Seed Vault in Norway. The concern is that these stores are still vulnerable to natural disasters, global warming and war.2
I hope you will consider eating organic foods and participate in the circle of life. Not only are you eating nutritious plants that are chemical free, you are helping the environment by not adding chemicals to the soil. You are helping the farmers by allowing them a more free and democratic way of storing and reusing seeds. You are not contributing to global warming because you are not indirectly purchasing fertilizer that was produced from fossil fuels. Finally, you are promoting the maintenance of biodiversity in our plant life. The icing on the cake would be composting your food scraps so that they do not end up in a landfill.
- seedthemovie.com .(Accessed: May 2, 2021).
- croptrust.org. (Accessed: May 2, 2021).