Ana Sofia Joanes’s film Fresh screened last night at the Creative Alliance at the Patterson in Baltimore.
Fresh forms an obvious counterpoint to Food Inc. Both films detail the manifold problems created by modern industrial-scale agriculture. Both feature shots of cows, chickens, and pigs forced to endure the unspeakable conditions of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO’s). But where Food Inc. focused on problems, Fresh focuses on solutions.
The films offers extensive interviews with author Michael Pollan (also featured prominently in Food Inc.), who notes that traditionally, farmers raised both plants and animals. The animals consumed the parts of the plants inedible to us (i.e., the straw) and then recycled nutrients back into the soil in the form of manure, so that the nutrients traveled in a closed loop. Pollan notes that modern industrial agriculture separates the cultivation of plants and animals, thereby splitting what was once a solution into two problems. The problem of disposing of the huge quantities of animal waste generated by the CAFO’s has grown hand-in-hand with the depletion of nutrients from the soil. Pollan points out that according to the USDA’s own official data, crops are less nutritious than they were fifty years ago. Furthermore, the animals living under such crowded filthy conditions must be fed massive doses of antibiotics to keep them from dropping dead. Pollan rattles off a long list of infectious diseases that plague animals raised in CAFO’s, including E. Coli, Salmonella, and Mad Cow Disease, which is transmitted by grinding up dead cows and feeding them to live ones.
Fresh then takes us to visit Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia, owned by Joel Salatin (also featured in Food Inc.). Salatin raises cows, pigs, and chickens without antibiotics, under conditions as close to natural as possible. He notes two essential facts about herbivorous animals such as cows: they are always on the move (accompanying his voice-over is shots of bison and wildebeests thundering over vast plains) and they don’t eat meat. The cows on the Polyface Farm graze in pastures, and they are moved to a new paddock almost every day. Three days after the cows depart, the chickens are let loose to roam the same paddock. They pick apart the cow patties and eat the fly larvae residing therein, thereby keeping the pest population down. Salatin speaks glowingly of his chickens, whom he refers to as “co-workers.”
Michael Pollan avers that meat and eggs produced under such salubrious conditions are superior nutritionally. They also cost more. But, he notes, “There is no such thing as cheap food.” We pay for low prices at the supermarket checkout, one way or the other – via subsidies, or environmental degradation, or poor health. Pollan adds that much of this country is a food desert. In many urban neighborhoods, there is nowhere to buy wholesome food, he notes in voice-over as we are treated to a shot of an inner-city liquor store with a hand-painted sign promising “Can food.”
To rectify this situation, Will Allen, founder of Growing Power and recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant, is teaching inner-city residents how to grow their own food. We see the irrepressible Allen leading a group of visitors through one of his greenhouses, where the water from fish tanks is used to hydrate and fertilize 150 varieties of greens. Nearby are bins where earthworms convert plant waste into rich, loamy soil. A visitor asks Allen if he can buy some worms. Allen tells him his worms are not for sale. “I’ll give ‘em to you,” he adds, grinning, “But first you gotta convince me you can take care of my babies.”
At a gathering sponsored by Growing Power, we meet a matron who has attended some of their workshops. At first, she tells us, she was shocked when she encountered farmers who could tell her the names of the cows who supplied the steaks she was eating. “I didn’t want my food to have names,” she says, laughing. “Now, my food has names.”
“It’s not just about food,” Allen tells us. “It’s about life.”
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