You would think that as much as I surround myself with people interested in a different way of doing agriculture and the wonders of local food that things like this wouldn’t slip by me unnoticed. But, again … I have found that I’m a little behind when it comes to the current documentary events. The latest agri-documentary that appears to be coming this spring is called “Fresh” and you can watch the trailer above.
As far as I can tell it features Joel Salatin and other innovative farmers around the country, along with some of the other familiar faces that show up in these types of films, and tries to show the need for change in our agricultural systems. It looks like it could be very interesting. I just hope they took a page from the great guys of “King Corn” and are not too heavy-handed in their delievery.
So, is there anything else that I am missing?
Great Ethan, thanks for sharing. This one is new for me too.
There is a PBS doc showing now called “To market, To market…” that looks pretty good. Another good one, especially for fruit and veg growers is “Eat at Bill’s”. I believe it was released 2 years ago.
I saw a documentary over 10 years ago called “My Father’s Garden”, that contained an account of Fred Kirschenmann’s organic farm in North Dakota. (whew, it took a while to find the actual names to backup my memory)
The documentary mainly deals with organic issues and production rather than the local food subject, but I found it interesting because his farm had an interesting system of crop rotations, (including wheat, mung beans, green manures, etc.) along with grazing cattle on native pastures with a sprinkling of his philosophy.
There is more information online at:
http://www.mirandaproductions.com/garden/
This looks like a great film. Do you know one would be able to find out more information about it?
There’s one coming out just now called Food, Inc.
I just saw Fresh Wednesday night in New York and it was great. There weren’t too many new insights for a person who has read into the issues of conventional vs. sustainable agriculture, but the film was really more about showing the efforts of people around the country to create sustainable food systems and in that way it was very uplifting. Joel Salatin was hilarious and getting to see his farm made me really envious of the lifestyle he gets to lead.
We live near Joel Salatin and have been visiting his farm and buying his meat for several years. He and his son (Daniel) are the two most dynamic farmers you will ever meet. The wealth of knowledge and just plain old common sense they use is just amazing. Not to mention…once you eat their beef/pork/chicken you will never, ever buy meat from a grocery store again.
We (Hope Dance FiLMs) just showed FRESH, the Movie, here in Santa Barbara as the kickoff for a movement to save our local farmland from developers. It was fantastic! Almost 200 people showed up and everyone loved the film, very positive response. Several asked us to show it again in their areas, or wanted to know how to rent it or buy it.
It was very well made. I liked the way it mixed the good/bad examples of farming – left audience feeling hopeful and enthusiastic rather than depressed. The feature stories were so uplifting, I will be looking up Joel Salatin, Good Nature Family Farms co-op, and others to learn how we can do this in our community! We can do this!
I’m glad so many people are coming out to see this film and learn about eating local food. A screening of Fresh will be shown in Charlottesville at PVCC on Saturday (8/15) at 6:30!