Entry #7 Fresh: A Documentary

    

     Recently, I watched a documentary called Fresh. It centered around the damages done by modern, mass agricultural practices. The film does a fair deal to educate a mostly unaware audience on what the issues are and whether things like raising livestock and growing crops can be done in ways that are far more humane, safe, and harmless, or even beneficial, with regard to the environment. 

     I think it did a fair deal to outrage and disturb the viewer with the ugly truths of what goes on behind the scenes; what our industrialized, hyper-detached approach of efficiency and innovation for the sake of the bottom-line is borne out into. It seems like treating organic systems as if they were factories is not only inhumane, but is dangerous to the environment, the food supply, and the continued existence of agricultural as it is currently organized.

     I'm always interested when I see documentaries around issues like these because I wonder what can be done to change things. and how powerful the forces that keep practices (like those mentioned in Fresh) in-place are. Some powerful people stand a lot to gain from maintaining the status quo as it relates to agriculture. Even with the majority opinion of the country probably being more in-line with more humane and sustainable agricultural practice, it feels nearly impossible to change things without a long, sustained national dialogue centered only around this issue. Even then, it would probably take decades to change- if it did change meaningfully at all.

     I think people need more awareness of the issue itself but I think recognizing the antagonists is the most important aspect. What or who is the problem? Is our demand for meat or certain crop staples to blame for this approach- our own excessive consumption? Who stands to benefit most monetarily from the amount of food we produce- farmers? Manufacturers of pesticides, antibiotics, and manure? I don't have enough of these answers so my rage feels mostly impotent. I do know that these are problems that ought to be tackled on an international level. 

     When you're focusing on issues of cruelty, harm, and a lack of sustainability in some of the most powerful economies producing some of the most important commodities on Earth, you're working with a lot of moving parts. There are a lot of competing interests that, to the vast majority of people, feel completely intangible and difficult to even conceive of. Individual choices are important and show a willingness to be flexible for a sake other than your own immediate gratification, sure. But the demand met by the product of industries involved in industrial agriculture is craved by these entities who have been made rich by said demand. As long as that demand exists and can be met by these entities, industrial farming will continue. Relying on a miraculous synchronicity of individuals choices that hurt this industry to the point of forcing change seems so improbable I can't see it as anything more than fantasy. So, who are the antagonists and, if we all want to create change, how do we leverage the power to change things? I think this is an area where people need more clarity, I know that I certainly do.

      Overall, if there is any change to be made on an individual level, its to be done by people the film focused on- people like Will Allen. Allen took the initiative to build an urban community who were oriented towards producing healthy crops in a sustainable way, inspiring most people who saw him to take the radical action of turning your back on an industry so massive that we, for the most part, feel we are helplessly coerced into participating in. We feel forced to reward this industry out of the simple fact that it dominates such a fundamental part of our lives.

     I think the film is important for anyone to see, it gets us all thinking about an issue that is so easily forgotten among any number of concerns that dominate our everyday lives. It's an issue that I believe is vital to our environment, our continued existence, and, perhaps most importantly, questioning how we organize systems. What is efficiency in service of? What are our goals, or what should our goals be, in organizing this industry or another? These aren't easy questions to answer, but they are certainly important questions.