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The Food Programme

The Grain Divide

The Food Programme

BBC

Arts, Food

4.4976 Ratings

🗓️ 1 February 2015

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Wheat has, since the dawn of agriculture, been especially treasured amongst all of the food crops, and is now the most widely cultivated food plant on the planet. However, the relationship between humans and wheat has changed a great deal in recent times.

With a high-profile documentary film, 'The Grain Divide', about to go on global release, Dan Saladino discovers a worldwide movement of farmers, bakers and breeders rethinking and rediscovering wheat - from long-lost varieties and flavours to re-imagining the future of our relationship with this grain.

The film's Director, JD McLelland, explains how his film aims to change perceptions of wheat - and why this matters. Dan also talks to one of the stars of the film, chef Dan Barber - who's breeding a new variety of wheat named Barber Wheat, and is leading the charge to look again at the taste of wheat.

On the archipelago of Svalbard, far north of the northernmost point of mainland Norway, is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Tunneled into the permafrost there lies a store of seeds like no other - which serves as a 'backup' facility, with samples from every country in the world.

It houses the largest collection of wheat varieties on the planet. Dr Cary Fowler, who helped to set up the seed vault - reveals about the role wheat's past has to play in our future.

Dan also meets Andy Forbes from Brockwell Bake, sourdough specialist Vanessa Kimbell and author of "Our Daily Bread - A History of the Cereals" - Professor Åsmund Bjørnstad... as well as Gotland farmer Curt Niklasson, whose life has been changed forever by the contents of a wooden treasure chest.

Presenter: Dan Saladino Producer: Rich Ward.

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about the

0:03.8

podcast I work on. I'm Dan Clark and I commissioned factual podcasts at the BBC.

0:08.6

It's a massive area but I'd sum it up as stories to help us make sense of the forces shaping the world.

0:15.0

What podcasting does is give us the space and the time to take brilliant BBC journalism

0:20.0

and tell amazing compelling stories that really get behind the headlines.

0:23.7

And what I get really excited about is when we find a way of drawing you into a subject

0:28.3

you might not even have thought you were interested in.

0:30.2

Whether it's investigations, science, tech, politics, culture, true crime, the environment,

0:36.1

you can always discover more with a podcast on BBC Sounds.

0:39.7

Hello, I'm Sheila Dylan and welcome to this BBC download of the Food Program.

0:45.8

For information on the BBC's terms and conditions of use, visit

0:49.4

W.W.

0:50.3

dot BBC dot co-

0:52.6

UK slash radio four and now enjoy the podcast

1:02.2

Picture this it's 1965 and a group of friends are out on a walk, heading through the fields

1:08.3

of a remote and beautiful island near the southern coast of Sweden, Gotland.

1:13.0

The friends are all agricultural experts,

1:16.0

and in an old farm building,

1:18.0

they discover a chest, and inside is a find

1:21.0

the importance of which would have passed most of us by.

1:25.0

They found so many different lines of wheat seeds.

1:30.0

This is a treasure, they said. It was so exciting.

...

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