Entry #7: Fresh Food part 1

Hello there. Today I'd like to analyze the contents of two films that tackle the topic of food and farming: This first one is about the film Fresh, and the second will be about the movie Food, Inc. Fresh is a documentary about the current factory farming environment that presently produces the food Americans eat, export, and circulate. It's message is seemingly that factory farming is harming our environment and that we should stop it and replace it with more ecologically friendly methods. I'll admit my bias in that I agree with the films messages so that the reader can take that into account as my analysis is processed.

The film opens on a couple, seemingly farmers, talking about how well they've been doing lately and showing some farm hands handling large amounts of baby chickens. It then goes into a description of how pesticides are used in this industry. But then they a bring in a Dr, John Ikerd who starts talking about how the industrial processes that go into factory farming don't work universally. There's then a segment about how having a large monoculture is a breeding ground for disease. For a while they start going into why this is happening, citing the massive profit incentive. Companies are only incentivized to make their profits rise as fast as they can. Interspersed throughout are segments with farmers discussing their views on these topics. One such reoccurring farm used more ecologically friendly techniques, such as shifting his herd around, using natural animal progression, and reducing the harsh chemicals used.

There's then a dip in tone as they go more into detail about the diseases picked up by factory farm animals and the intense chemicals needed to keep them relatively disease free. There's a story they tell about a pig farmer who gets injured in the leg by a bore tusk. the farmer ended up getting a treatment resistant version of strep and was only saved by a new chemical meant to treat advanced strep. The talk about how constantly exposing diseases to these antibiotics to the animals creates resistant diseases because they don't completely kill off any infection, and so increasingly more drastic measures are needed. The same farmer says that he had to exterminate his last set of animals before adjusting to more ecofriendly methods.

The Fresh movie also touches on the infrastructure lightly throughout the film. They touch on how there are food deserts where people can't buy healthier products. They show an eco-farmer named Will Allen who uses worm heavy soil and is trying to spread eco-friendly practices to the other farmers in the area. Will Allen's wife also makes an appearance to talk about how having such fresh food has benefited her life and the lives of their children. The tine varies up and down between darker and less dark in a frequency that's faster than a three act structure. There's another farmer on that talks about how they need to produce obscene amounts of food just to get by. They call out ADM and Cargill as the main actors in the problem with their monopolies.

They finish by reiterating some of the main points and some of the lessons they want the viewers to take with them. They suggest that there needs to be a decentralization of the food supply to keep companies like this from developing. They touch on how food jobs are being taken out of the country and it's taking jobs away from the farmers in America. They talk about how local farms and independent markets are feeling the pressure from large companies consolidating their power to try and make an even larger profit. And the movie ends on a montage of the people in the film previous talking about how the viewer can make a change for the better.

This movie is informative, but in a shallow sort of way. It seems like it's meant to try and put some ideas loosely in one spot and then trying to give the viewer enough pathos to try and figure out what to do with the ideas on their own. It tries to appeal to farmers and green consumers, possibly though the more surface level approach. It could be an attempt to not intimidate potential viewers with large jargon heavy information. However the level of shallowness achieved may be too much as the topics seem like the words of a dispersed and uncoordinated group. The tone shifting can seem a little fast but it's mostly just hanging around the middle, having a neutral tone on average though it goes up and down.

Society isn't helpless against things like climate change and factory farming. There are methods and practices, some of which are covered in this piece, that can be used to mitigate and even reverse the adverse affect of these practices. But actually implementing them is a major issue. For there to be proper effects these changes would need to be adopted en mass and there isn't a profit incentive to do something like that. On top of that, there may be a shock that would be precarious for a country that enjoys food so much. If the eco-friendly movement can adapt and flourish, connecting people to spread this further, there will be many more ready to try and save the world.

Ripple Effect Films. (2009). Fresh: Sustainable Food Production in America. Retrieved November 20, 2022.