A new documentary short - launched on 23 January 2026 - follows journalist Dan Saladino’s journey to meet Dr Debal Deb: the scientist saving thousands of endangered varieties, gifting future resilience to the food that half of humankind relies on. Available to watch on YouTube, Vimeo, and WaterBear.
“I never knew that the little box of my personal stories of agony and joy, pried open by Dan Saladino, would fascinate so many people. When I saw tears in a few eyes of some of these exceptional audience members, I felt blessed and humbled.”
This short film captures a life’s work to save the food that half of humankind relies on.
Journalist, Dan Saladino, is a forager of endangered food stories in this fragile world, the film follows his encounter with Dr Debal Deb who, over 30 years, has conserved 1,460 indigenous rice varieties from the most remote tribes of India.
“Where our food comes from, the origin stories of our food…I think is one of the most important stories any human can hear. ”
“In ecology, there is a prediction that if any species loses its genetic diversity more and more, then the probability of the species extinction is increased…[Rice] is doomed to extinction. One single attack of pests, or a new pest, or a disease, that species is gone.”
Each seed is meticulously cultivated on Basudha Farm in an ever-growing patchwork that maintains the genetic genotypes year on year.
We owe this edible diversity to thousands of years of innovation by our ancestors. Debal is putting his seed bank, unparalleled anywhere else in the world, back into the hands of local farmers so they can regain their sovereignty.
Named Vrīhi – Sanskrit for rice – Debal hopes “it will germinate in the minds of the people, as well as in the fields”. Like the rice he has saved, Debal’s ideas are too precious to be lost.
The Gaia Foundation is a small, international charity with 40 years’ experience accompanying custodians around the world to revive biocultural diversity. ‘Digital Creator’ winners at the BBC Food & Farming Awards in 2025, they use the ancient art of storytelling to share positive examples of climate adaptation, wildlife recovery and cultural change. gaiafoundation.org / @thegaiafoundation
Dan Saladino is author of Eating to Extinction: The World's Most Endangered Foods and Why We Need to Save Them, which won the Wainwright Prize for Writing on Conservation. During his twenty-five-year career as a journalist he has been a news reporter, investigative documentary maker and presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme, receiving the James Beard Foundation Award for food journalism. His focus is now global food security and the decline in biodiversity. dansaladino.com
Dr Debal Deb and The Last Harvest was created by Jason Taylor for The Gaia Foundation. Story by Dr Debal Deb and Dan Saladino, with support from The A Team and Savitri Trust.