FOOD ON EARTH: project concept

a documentary film by david kaplowitz

“We are the flour in your bread, the wheat in your noodles, the salt on your fries. We are the corn in your tortillas, the chocolate in your dessert, the sweetener in your soft drink. We are the oil in your salad dressing and the beef, pork or chicken you eat for dinner. We are the cotton in your clothing, the backing on your carpet and the fertilizer in your field.” —Cargill Corporate Brochure

“Industrial agriculture is a brute force approach. It has one big hammer, like the pesticide, to smash the one problem the bug. Whereas ecologically based agriculture is what some people have called the many tiny hammers approach. So instead of taking the big hammer of the pesticide, you put the tiny hammers of the ladybugs in your field for example to work for you to control the pests. And it involves, in a certain sense, more knowledge of the ecology of natural systems.” —Dr. Peter Rosset, Food First

Humankind’s relationship with food and with the land is one of the most fundamental, important, and indeed primordial relationships in the natural world. Yet for many of us, that bond has been broken.

Until recently, the omnipresence of processed, slickly packaged food in our world existed without widespread questioning and served to create a great distance between us as consumers and our food production. But there are signs of change. Awareness about what we’re eating, how it’s produced, and who’s profiting from its production is increasing.

FOOD ON EARTH is an innovative and essential 90-minute documentary film on humankind’s relationship with food and the Earth. The film will explore the starkly opposed approaches of the industrial giants of agriculture versus small-scale, local, organic, and sustainable agriculture.

As we stand on the verge of what some call a revolution in food production and what some call an impending disaster, FOOD ON EARTH will clarify the enormity of what’s at stake for the world’s people, the planet’s health and our legacy to future generations.

The differences between the approaches seem diametrically opposed:

• Industrial agriculture says that it will feed the world.
Opponents say it increases hunger.

• Industrial agriculture says its food is safe, healthy, and nutritious.
Opponents say that industrial-produced food is a major reason cancer, food-borne illness, and obesity are at all-time high levels.

• Industrial agriculture says its food is cheap.
Opponents say that when the environmental and social costs are added, the costs skyrocket.

• Industrial agriculture says that it is efficient.
Opponents say that small farms produce more agricultural output per unit than large farms.

• Industrial food says that it offers more choices.
Opponents point out that in fact, crop diversity has dropped dramatically, essentially limiting our choices.

• Industrial agriculture says that it benefits the environment and the wildlife.
Opponents say it is actually the greatest threat to the earth’s biodiversity.

• Industrial agriculture says that biotechnology will solve the problems of industrial agriculture.
Opponents say that such “solutions” will actually compound the problems, which were in fact created by industrial methods in the first place.

Where does the truth lie?

More and more, people want to know what they’re eating. Evidence of that fact can be found everywhere from our local supermarkets to international headlines. Organic food is the fastest growing segment of the food market in the US. Genetically engineered crops are already taboo in many parts of Europe. Even in the US, fears are growing about the long-term impacts these new technologies.

FOOD ON EARTH is extremely relevant at this point in history because while industrial agriculture and now the biotechnology sector consistently claim they will solve the problem of global hunger, hunger is on the rise. 800 million people go hungry and 35,000 children starve to death every day. In the words of Dr. Vandana Shiva, “the biggest illusion of modern times is that industrial agriculture has solved the problem of hunger. It has in fact, for the first time ever in human history, created a permanent problem of hunger. Hunger has been there in the past, but societies were never always hungry. They were feeding themselves. There would be pockets of drought, pockets of famine, otherwise societies would get wiped out. For the first time, we now see permanently, a billion people hungry.”

The industrialization of the global food supply has meant its takeover by a handful of multinational corporations. The consolidation of power has occurred across the board—from Monsanto, which sues farmers over the “intellectual property rights” of its seeds to Cargill, which is proud to be “the flour in your bread, the wheat in your noodles, the salt on your fries, the corn in your tortillas, the chocolate in your dessert, the sweetener in your soft drink, the oil in your salad dressing and the beef, pork or chicken you eat for dinner, the cotton in your clothing, the backing on your carpet and the fertilizer in your field.”

Inspired in part by the collection of essays FATAL HARVEST: THE TRAGEDY OF INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE and by the writings of Wendell Berry and Rachel Carson, the film will be a comprehensive survey of the dominant system currently in place—industrial agriculture—and its intimate relationship with the forces of globalization, taking a journey around that globalized world to look at industrial agriculture’s effects. The film will show why a system that is discordant with nature exists in perfect harmony with economic globalization. In a parallel journey, the film explores and explains the various methods of ecological agriculture that exist in harmony with nature, yet in discord with the system of globalization.

Being careful not to simply attack the current paradigm, FOOD ON EARTH will lead the viewer on a journey to understand how our current agricultural system works. It will explore how we’ve arrived at that system, why we need to question it, and what the alternatives are. In the end, the viewer will have a clear picture of how their food consumption affects the world around them.

Through a rich visual tapestry of land and food, people and culture, stories and analysis, the viewer comes to understand one of humankind’s most important relationships in the natural world--our relationship with food and land--and how that relationship has been and is being eroded.

FILMMAKER
FOOD ON EARTH will be written, produced, and directed by David Kaplowitz. David’s film, IN WHOSE INTEREST? is a journey through the past 50 years of U.S. foreign policy. The film has been screened in dozens of locations in the United States, Canada, and the UK, and is distributed worldwide by two major distributors. It also aired on Free Speech TV in the U.S. and was selected for the 2004 World Social Forum Film Festival, the 2003 Amnesty International Film Festival, the 2003 Vermont International Film Festival, the 2003 Images du Nouveau Monde International Film Festival and the 2002 United Nations Association Film Festival.

Previous projects include HIP HOP CUBANO, a look at race, gender, and censorship within the world of hip hop in Havana, and camera work and editing on Merry-Go-Round, a 20-minute ethnographic film focusing on race relations on a housing project in North London.

In addition, David has produced several television news pieces on a variety of subjects, including U.S.-Navy produced toxic waste at the Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco and its effects on the outlying community and on Alameda's publicly owned power system.

David also has significant experience in radio, having worked at the BBC in London in international news, producing mostly American stories on the death penalty debate, U.S.-military toxic waste around the globe, U.S. media critiques, missile defense, genetic engineering, and many other topics. David has done audio editing on several CDs of essays by Death Row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, and a 50-minute radio documentary on Earth First! Activist Judi Bari. He has also done audio engineering and editing on dozens of San Francisco Bay Area music acts, and sound design and composition for film and theater.