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A review of “The Global Banquet: Politics of Food” and Movie “Fresh” by Ana Sofia Joanes

The current global food system presents a troubling situation where people continually lack nutritious food substances and essential vitamins due to the advent of globalization which has replaced traditional organic farming with unhealthy industry made processed food. In an effort to fix these complex situations, people are enlightened with informative trainings through international conferences, films and documentaries to promote a sustained healthy eating culture in the society.

The movies “The Global Banquet: Politics of Food” and Sophia Joanes’ movie, “Fresh” are such documentary films that have sensitized people to reclaim the traditional farming methods to help fix the existing global food systems. Both movies feature important issues relating to food security, where the main idea is to create awareness on the need to make the right choices when buying food from the market. They also attempt to highlight the solutions they people can use to promote the production of sustained and healthier food in their communities

Sophia Joanes’ movie, “Fresh” is a documentary which highlights the right farming methods through two farmers, Joel Salatin, a self prescribed evangelist and an environmentalist farmer, who owns a polyface farm in Virginia and Will Allen who is an urban farmer who owns a three acre model farm in Milwaukee known as the “Growing Power”. This non profit farming organization demonstrates how a small piece of land can be used to carry out diversified forms of farming that produce healthy food to the community. Will Allen’s farms have a combination of fresh vegetables and herbs, poultry farms, goat pens, beehives as well as fishponds with about 1000 tilapia fish breed.

Using these two farmers, the movie director seeks to show individual members in the society that with combined efforts and absolute commitment from every one, we can achieve a proper healthy food system, which can lead to a healthier community. The movie shows the viewers about the cost incurring processes involved to produce healthier food which reflects in their prices making them seem to be a bit more expensive than the processed food

On the other hand, the movie “The Global Banquet: Politics of Food” is a resourceful documentary which exposes the damaging effects of global industrialization to the food systems in our societies today. It shows how individual groups such as students, church groups, environmentalists, animal right activists, laborers and farmers are coming together to collectively search for solutions to address the problem within the current food systems in an effort to adopt standard healthy living.

This movie is a two parts series in which the first part shows a farmer who claims that the challenges facing organic farmers in their society can be linked to the uncontrolled political, cultural, social and economic factors that have caused the modern society to abandon traditional farming methods and adopt the advanced technological changes. The second part of this movie addresses the impacts of these technological advancements on agriculture and seeks to search for different possible solutions that can be used to help eliminate the problems brought about by international globalization.

The common theme in the two movies is the need to provide people with insightful information about farming methods. This can help them choose organic farming over factory farming in an effort to promote healthy living through the production and supply of health food. The two movies reveal the shocking facts relating to how people have been entranced into taking chemical and processed foods.

In the two movies, people are cautioned against opting for the option of chemically processed food stuffs by highlighting the disadvantages of taking junk food. They clearly show that the cheap industrial food eventually becomes expensive in the long run due to the high cost one may incur to treat diseases that result from the damaging chemicals used to make them. In addition, the movies create a clear picture in the mind of the viewers by demonstrating how the industrialization process involved in factory farming, is implicated in environmental degradation.

Based on the numerous amounts of junk food stored in our groceries, it is evident that there are more market opportunities for industrialized chemically processed foods in comparison to organic products and this continues to negatively affect the food security in both the developed and developing world. This poses a major challenge to modern small scale farmers in various ways, as people prefer cheap industrialized junk food over farm produce, which leaves the farmers with no market access for their produce.

The increased globalization has continually degraded the environment where pollutants from destructive industrial emissions result in conditions that are unfavorable for farming. Damaged climatic conditions negatively affect natural subsistent farming and push farmers to engage in alternative expensive farming methods such as irrigation and green houses which impose heavy financial implications to farmers.

In an effort to promote a culture of organic farming and to encourage small scale farmers in our societies, both the “The Global Banquet: Politics of Food” and Sophia Joanes’ movie “Fresh” use persuasive techniques and appeal strategies to persuade members of the society to not only engage in correct farming methods around their areas, but also to support small scale farmers to get market for their produce, through buying fresh organic products from specified groceries.