Into the Weeds:

Keynote Speaker: Jennifer Baichwal, Director, Into the Weeds: Dewayne “Lee” Johnson vs. Monsanto Company

Dewayne Johnson, a Bay Area groundskeeper, suffered from rashes in 2014 and wondered if they were caused by the herbicide he’d been using for the past couple years. As his health deteriorated, Johnson became the face of a David-and-Goliath legal battle to hold a multi-national agrochemical corporation accountable for a product with allegedly misleading labelling. Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide, has been a signature product for the multinational agrochemical corporation for over four decades. Used by industrial farms, golf courses, and suburban homeowners with a grudge against dandelions, it is sold in more than 130 nations. Scientists raised concerns about its environmental impact and carcinogenic properties, but the deep-pocketed corporation’s lawyers, lobbyists, and marketers deflected numerous studies and disputed the findings. Adding to her award-winning body of work centred on our strained relationship with the natural world, acclaimed director Jennifer Baichwal’s Into the Weeds: Dewayne ’Lee’ Johnson vs. Monsanto Company follows Johnson through his battle, setting his personal journey against a global environmental crisis.

6:45 pm: Panel discussion/Q&A with Jennifer Baichwal, Director, Into the Weeds; Melissa Lem, Board President, Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment; Hans Forstbauer, Forstbauer Family Natural Food Farm; Carey Gillam, Managing Editor, The New Lede, The Guardian Contributor, Author of Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science and The Monsanto Papers: Deadly Secrets, Corporate Corruption, and One Man’s Search for Justice
Moderator TBD