“When you control seed, you control life on earth,” says Indian environmental activist and scholar Vandana Shiva in the new documentary film The Seeds of Vandana Shiva.  Known as “Monsanto’s worst nightmare,” Vandana Shiva has been a champion of small, organic farms, since she established seed banks, in a subversive act she likens to Gandhi’s championing of the spinning wheel, to counter the efforts of large corporations to control agriculture in India through the selling of pesticides and trademarked GMO seeds.

In this episode – the first of three on farming – I talk to Jim Becket about making the film and about the story of Vandana Shiva’s life and mission.

Jim Becket has a rich professional background that he brings to his filmmaking, as a former ski racer, developmental economist, human rights lawyer, international civil servant, journalist and author. He wrote the first Amnesty International Report on Torture and, as Director of Public Information for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, made several films about refugee problems around the world, which he followed with other documentary films, including the award-winning Sons of Africa. He’s co-produced several documentaries on environmental issues, including The Green Patriarch, The Amazon: The End of Infinity, The Arctic: The Consequences of Human Folly, and El Misterio del Capital de los Indigenas Amazonicos.