“Seed” chronicles the David-and-Goliath battle now being fought to ensure the diversity of the Earth’s seed stock.The stakes couldn’t be higher. Few things are as miraculous and vital as seeds. Like tiny time capsules, they contain the songs, sustenance, memories, and medicines of entire cultures. They feed us, clothe us, and provide the raw materials for our everyday lives. In a very real sense, they are life itself. Yet in our modern world, these precious gifts of nature are in grave danger. In less than a century of industrial agriculture, our once-abundant seed diversity has been drastically winnowed down to a handful of mass-produced varieties. Family farmsteads have given way to mechanized agribusinesses sowing genetically identical crops on a monstrous scale. Today, our seeds are increasingly private property held in corporate hands, with a cadre of 10 agrichemical companies (including Syngenta, Bayer, and Monsanto) now controlling more than two-thirds of the global seed market. Genetically modified crops engineered in their laboratories dominate farmers’ fields and dinner tables in the United States and countries around the world. But people everywhere are waking up to the vital importance of seeds for our future. Seed libraries, community gardens, and a new generation of passionate young farmers are cropping up to shift the balance toward a more sustainable seed paradigm.