Hungry for Change?

If you haven't seen it yet then get hold of a copy of the recent documentary Food Inc. Johanna and I watched it last night and sat, jaws dropping, as the film moved its way through the terrifying industrial food landscape of the USA. While Britain isn't in the same league yet, don't be fooled into thinking our farms contain jolly farmers and contented animals as the pretty pictures on shrink-wrapped produce may lead you to believe.

I knew most of this stuff before; books like Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore's Dilemma have told of the ruthless commodification of the natural life cycle and of food production in the name of profit. But somehow, seeing it on screen, watching the look of grief on a farmer's face when he discovers he is being prosecuted by Monsanto for cleaning and saving seed for himself and his neighbouring farmers, because the corporation owns the patent to the seed itself, somehow that strikes deep inside. It is anti-nature to reduce life and food to science and profit and by default it is anti-human.

The film shines some light in the industrial gloom in the form of Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms. He is living proof that farmers can raise crops and livestock in a way that continually replenishes and heals the soil, enriches and feeds his community and yet still makes his family a more than decent living. His son is actively involved in the farm, bucking the trend of children of farmers fleeing to the cities to avoid the hardship and oppression of modern supermarket dominated farming. The average age of farmers in the Uk is in the mid-sixties. What do we do when they die out?

It makes us even prouder to be striving to make bread with the soil and people at the centre of our ethics. By using organic ingredients, by sourcing locally whenever possible, by being transparent and honest with our customers, by being face-to-face with our customers rather than on the other side of the planet, we are saying 'no' to industrial food production, 'no' to the strip-mining of community infrastructure and local food resilience and a resounding 'yes' to food with integrity that puts planet, people and equality above profit.

I'm hungry for change. go watch the film and you will be too.