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In today's world we can watch movies on any subject. Some we watch for entertainment - think Anchorman or the new Star Trek. Others, like Wall-E, we watch for fun and educational purposes. But now, more than ever, we have access to documentaries that follow social and environmental issues that help to expand our worldview, provide inspiration and give solutions to many of the world's problems. Below are some documentaries that explore the impact of our current agricultural system. They are full of examples of how ineffective and damaging industrial agriculture is to communities and the environment, and how we can work together to create a more sustainable agricultural system. I encourage you to watch these movies, and share them with your family, friends and neighbors. Check them out!
The Garden 
THE GARDEN is an engaging and powerful look at the famous political and social battle over the largest community garden in the US (located in South Central Los Angeles). A follow-up to Kennedy’s award-winning documentary OT: OUR TOWN, the film shows how the politics of power and greed (backroom deals, land developing, green politics, money) tragically intersect with working class families who rely on this communal garden for their livelihood. Equal parts THE WIRE and HARLAN COUNTY USA, THE GARDEN exposes the fault lines in American society and raises crucial and challenging questions about liberty, equality, and justice for the poorest and most vulnerable among us. Kenneth Turan of the LA Times said: “It’s tempting to call “The Garden” a story of innocence and experience, of evil corrupting paradise, but that would be doing a disservice to the fascinating complexities of a classic Los Angeles conflict and an excellent documentary that does them full justice.” Food, Inc. 
In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that’s been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. Food, Inc. reveals surprising — and often shocking truths — about what we eat, how it’s produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here. The Future of Food 
The Future Of Food offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade. "We used to be a nation of farmers, but now it's less than two percent of the population in the United States. So a lot of us don't know a lot about what it takes to grow food." - Judith Redmond, Full Belly Farms The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil 
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba's economy went into a tailspin. With imports of oil cut by more than half – and food by 80 percent – people were desperate. This film tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the community and creativity of the Cuban people during this difficult time. Cubans share how they transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens. It is an unusual look into the Cuban culture during this economic crisis, which they call "The Special Period." The film opens with a short history of Peak Oil, a term for the time in our history when world oil production will reach its all-time peak and begin to decline forever. Cuba, the only country that has faced such a crisis – the massive reduction of fossil fuels – is an example of options and hope. King Corn 
King Corn is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. In King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends form college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, nitrogen fertilizers, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of American's most-productive, most subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat - - and how we farm. |
