When Terry and Monique left the opera to pursue their true passion - ecological farming - their story of community and resilience took center stage. We follow their young family and a diverse group of farmers and scientists as they blend age old traditions with cutting edge science to develop improved methods for growing food ecologically and in a changing climate. A hopeful story and Canadian perspective on a global social movement that regenerates the land, farming and communities.
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.
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.
For decades, migrant workers have worked the fields of Immokalee, harvesting tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, oranges and other produce that is then shipped across the United States of America. Many of the workers are undocumented, and attempting to keep their jobs even as federal migration crackdowns hover over the town. The Fields of Immokalee film follows the daily lives of tomato workers, from the 5:00am trips to the parking lot in hopes of finding day labor, to work sessions in the scorching mid-day heat, to child detention centers for migrant youth that have been separated from their families. Via these vignettes, the film offers insight into the most volatile political issue of our time.
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.
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…
A strange story from Somerset, England about a filmmaking farmer and the inspiring legacy of his long-lost home movies.
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.
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.
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.
Two sides of Mysore: down to earth with the field workers and an Indian spectacle for the Maharaja.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Summer unveils a new blueberry season in northern Canada. The fields are covered in blue and workers from all over scramble before the frost puts an end to the harvest. And yet this time of year is much more than just picking: it's a time of music and connection.