siff press preview 2
May. 19th, 2009 05:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ironymaidenFood Inc is one of those documentaries with a non-neutral POV. it's not flamingly so (like anything by Michael Moore or Expelled) but it does end with a What Can I Do About This?/Call to Action.
the film is firmly focused on the US and talking to US viewers about the way corporations have come to control what we eat. talking heads include Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser. if you know those names, the film won't tell you much new information. if you don't know those names, then this is a slickly packaged and clearly presented argument for knowing more about where your food comes from and making informed decisions.
because i am a farm kid (and already familiar with Pollan and Schlosser's work) the segment that caught me was the one on Monsanto Roundup-Ready soybeans. since shortly after my family got out of the business, Monsanto's patented herbicide-resistant soybeans have taken over 90% of the market. because they have a patent on those seeds, it is illegal to save seeds to plant in the next season. because it's very difficult to isolate your non-patented plants from the patented plants in your neighbor's field, one can easily end up with Monsanto patented genes mixed into your old skool beans. and then, the sueing. there was a passing comment made that with the advent of the Monsanto engineered beans that the land-grant university research programs are withering. as far as i'm concerned, there's a whole documentary right here. the deposition footage of the Monsanto lawyers grilling the elderly man with the seed cleaning business (traveling from farm to farm with a machine that does prep for using saved seeds) was heartbreaking.
it would be a very good rental. (warning: full of butchering scenes both unsafe and safe. but if you can't stand to see that you should really rethink eating meat...)
the film is firmly focused on the US and talking to US viewers about the way corporations have come to control what we eat. talking heads include Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser. if you know those names, the film won't tell you much new information. if you don't know those names, then this is a slickly packaged and clearly presented argument for knowing more about where your food comes from and making informed decisions.
because i am a farm kid (and already familiar with Pollan and Schlosser's work) the segment that caught me was the one on Monsanto Roundup-Ready soybeans. since shortly after my family got out of the business, Monsanto's patented herbicide-resistant soybeans have taken over 90% of the market. because they have a patent on those seeds, it is illegal to save seeds to plant in the next season. because it's very difficult to isolate your non-patented plants from the patented plants in your neighbor's field, one can easily end up with Monsanto patented genes mixed into your old skool beans. and then, the sueing. there was a passing comment made that with the advent of the Monsanto engineered beans that the land-grant university research programs are withering. as far as i'm concerned, there's a whole documentary right here. the deposition footage of the Monsanto lawyers grilling the elderly man with the seed cleaning business (traveling from farm to farm with a machine that does prep for using saved seeds) was heartbreaking.
it would be a very good rental. (warning: full of butchering scenes both unsafe and safe. but if you can't stand to see that you should really rethink eating meat...)
