New movie undermines how
we do business
(6-12-09) A new movie that could
impact corn growers is hitting the big screen TODAY!
Overview: The documentary Food, Inc., according
to its Web site, “lifts the veil on our nation's food
industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that's
been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of
our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our
nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of
corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer
health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the
safety of workers and our own environment. We have
bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop,
insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that
won't go bad, but we also have new strains of e coli--the
harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000
Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity,
particularly among children, and an epidemic level of
diabetes among adults”
Key Players: The movie is
a collaboration of director Robert Kenner and producer Eric
Schlosser (Fast Food Nation). Michael Pollan (The
Omnivore’s Dilemma) is co-credited on the screenplay
with Schlosser. Other key players include: Joel Salatin, A
“self-sustaining” poultry-and-pig farmer from Virginia’s
Shenandoah Valley; Gary Hirshberg , CEO of Stonyfield Farms
(Hirshberg is a longtime critic of Monsanto and GMOs); and
Barbara Kowalcyk, an activist who launched her food safety
crusade after her two-year-old son Kevin died of
complications from an E.coli infection in 2001 (Kowalcyk’s
primary targets are the beef industry and federal
regulators.)
What the film says of corn producers and processors: This crop is
shown, as one review put it, as “assuming dozens of
ubiquitous identifies” – most notably high-fructose corn
syrup, Pollan’s bête noire. The film asserts that corn “is
kept at unrealistically low prices by the government, is fed
to animals that haven't evolved to eat it (such as the cow),
causes those animals to develop maladies that must be
treated with antibiotics (which are passed on to consumers),
and has led to the mutation of new strains of the E.coli
virus, which sickens tens of thousands each year.” This
policy benefits big corporations along the food chain like
Monsanto, Cargill, Tyson and McDonald’s.
Monsanto, Tyson,
Smithfield, etc. are specifically targeted in the movie and
have developed counterpoints through interviews and online
websites.
