King Corn is a fun and crusading journey into the digestive tract of our fast food nation where one ultra-industrial, pesticide-laden, heavily-subsidized commodity dominates the food pyramid from top to bottom – corn. Fueled by curiosity and a dash of naiveté, two college buddies return to their ancestral home of Greene, Iowa to figure out how a modest kernel conquered America. With the help of some real farmers, oodles of fertilizer and government aide, and some genetically modified seeds, the friends manage to grow one acre of corn. Along the way, they unlock the hilarious absurdities and scary but hidden truths about America’s modern food system in this engrossing and eye-opening documentary.
Is there a mental health crisis in agriculture in Colorado? Farming and ranching has become increasingly difficult over the years. An industry that is typically viewed as romantic, hardworking, and "salt-of-the earth" is actually a job full of tremendous stress outside of anyone's control. Combine that with the enormous generational pressure to continue the family farm, and you have a large group of people that are suffering silently. How do we take care of those that are taking care of us?
A look at man's relationship with Dirt. Dirt has given us food, shelter, fuel, medicine, ceramics, flowers, cosmetics and color --everything needed for our survival. For most of the last ten thousand years we humans understood our intimate bond with dirt and the rest of nature. We took care of the soils that took care of us. But, over time, we lost that connection. We turned dirt into something "dirty." In doing so, we transform the skin of the earth into a hellish and dangerous landscape for all life on earth. A millennial shift in consciousness about the environment offers a beacon of hope - and practical solutions.
Exposing the dark underbelly of modern animal agriculture through drones, hidden & handheld cameras, the feature-length film explores the morality and validity of our dominion over the animal kingdom.
Milk is Big Business. Behind the innocent appearances of the white stuff lies a multi-billion euro industry, which perhaps isn't so innocent…
This documentary takes a piercing investigative look at the economic, political and ecological implications of the worldwide disappearance of the honeybee. The film examines our current agricultural landscape and celebrates the ancient and sacred connection between man and the honeybee. The story highlights the positive changes that have resulted due to the tragic phenomenon known as "Colony Collapse Disorder." To empower the audience, the documentary provides viewers with tangible solutions they can apply to their everyday lives. Vanishing of the Bees unfolds as a dramatic tale of science and mystery, illuminating this extraordinary crisis and its greater meaning about the relationship between humankind and Mother Earth. The bees have a message - but will we listen?
1972 in Haute-Savoie (France) : the Bertrand's farm, with a hundred dairy cows owned by three bachelor brothers, is filmed for the first time. In 1997, they were the subject of Gilles Perret's first movie, as they let their farm to their nephew Patrick and his wife Hélène. Nowadays, 25 years later, Gilles Perret take another look at this farm, managed by Hélène who will step down. Through their words, an intimate, social and economic history of the rural world.
Anita Chitaya has a gift: she can help bring abundant food from dead soil, she can make men fight for gender equality, and maybe she can end child hunger in her village. Now, to save her home in Malawi from extreme weather, she faces her greatest challenge: persuading Americans that climate change is real. Traveling from Malawi to California to the White House, she meets climate sceptics and despairing farmers. Her journey takes her across all the divisions that shape the USA: from the rural-urban divide, to schisms of race, class and gender, and to the American exceptionalism that remains a part of the culture. It will take all her skill and experience to help Americans recognise, and free themselves from, a logic that is already destroying the Earth.
The inspiring story of British farmers standing up against the industrial food system and transforming the way they produce food - to heal the soil, benefit our health and provide for local communities.
America's policy of producing cheap food at all costs has long hobbled small independent farmers, ranchers, and chefs. Worried for their survival, trailblazing food writer Ruth Reichl reaches out across political and social divides to uncover the country's broken food system and the innovators risking it all to transform it.
A strange story from Somerset, England about a filmmaking farmer and the inspiring legacy of his long-lost home movies.
Die Bio-Revolution - Die Karriere der ökologischen Landwirtschaft
Peter Proctor is New Zealand's father of biodynamic agriculture. Peter has been gardening and making compost for over 65 years. "Biodymanics makes organics work." Compost is the fundamental element in all gardening & farming. This master class takes you through the biodynamic compost making process from gathering and assembling your materials to creating the perfect compost heap. Rudolf Steiner believed biodynamic compoast was the foundation of humanity and the vital link between the cosmos and the earth. In Perfect Compost, Peter Proctor walks you through every step to building perfect compost.
The people and their labor are bound to the land in the cycle of activities to the sowing to the harvesting of wheat. Without narration or subtitles, the film conveys a sense of unity between the people and the land. Filmed in the Balkh Province, an area inhabited by Tajik and other Central Asian peoples. The town of Aq Kupruk is approximately 320 miles northwest of Kabul. The theme of the film focuses on rural economics. The film and accompaning instructor notes focus on herding, and fishing under diverse environmental conditions. The impact of technological change, human adaptation, and governmental extension of market systems are parallel themes.
This 10-minute short documentary exploring the shifting state of the American poultry industry was preserved in 2015 from an original nitrate print. More information is available on the film's page in the National Film Preservation Foundation's website, where this version can be found featuring original music by Michael D. Mortilla.
For ancient Mayans, cocoa was as good as gold. For subsistence farmer Eladio Pop, his cocoa crops are the only riches he has to support his wife and 15 children. As he wields his machete with ease, slicing a path to his cocoa trees, the small jungle plot he cultivates in southern Belize remains pristine and wild. His dreams for his children to inherit the land and the traditions of their Mayan ancestors present a familiar challenge. The kids feel their father's philosophies don't fit into a global economy, so they're charting their own course. Rohan Fernando's direction tenderly displays a generational shift, causalities of progress in modern times and a man valiantly protecting an endangered culture. Breathtaking vistas of lush rainforests contrast with the urban dystopia that pulled Pops children away from him. Will one child return to carry on a waning way of life
Sheds light on an alternative approach to farming called “regenerative agriculture” that could balance our climate, replenish our vast water supplies, and feed the world.
The successes and failures of a couple determined to live in harmony with nature on a farm outside of Los Angeles are lovingly chronicled by filmmaking farmer John Chester, in this inspiring documentary.
A documentary about what happened to the Great Plains of the United States and Canada when uncontrolled farming destroyed the soil and led to the Dust Bowl.
We’ve all seen environmental problems highlighted everyday on the media. Now comes the solution. From the man who said, “You can solve all the world’s problems in a garden” comes Geoff Lawton’s Permaculture Soils DVD. 137 minutes of Permaculture soil creation strategies that really work! Even if you have never built a garden or got your hands dirty before, you will learn the secrets of real soil creation – partnering with the life in the Soil! Geoff will take you through every step of the process and explain in detail how to do it yourself. From Compost creation to larger Kitchen Gardens and then to broad acre farming – this is the future of biological agriculture.