There is a new food revolution beginning it is one that is getting back to the roots of our foods; natural unprocessed foods. Many people with and without health ailments are discovering how whole, natural foods benefit their health. Farmageddon is a documentary that reveals how the USDA, FDA, and other regulating agencies are sabotaging the efforts of both individuals and local small producers to enable access to these organic, locally grown and raised foods and meats. The documentary tells the story of independent family farms and small businesses that were, or are, providing safe, healthy foods and were either forced to shut down, or nearly forced to shut down, due to seizures and unjustified searches. These seizures and searches also lead to the …show more content…
These mandates maybe eighty or more years old and not applicable to today’s small family farms, however they are enforced by these agencies with extreme force; guns drawn, SWAT and tactile teams in place. Do they use such force at large corporate farms? Farmageddon clearly announces that none of these businesses or farmers had complaints against them or had been the source of a food borne illness, in fact Farmageddon comments on the fact that 100% of food borne illness and food recalls have occurred in large agribusinesses not the local, small organic producers. Farmageddon, also notes that if there ever was a food borne illness related to these small, local producers it would be quickly discovered, easily traceable and would not lead to multistate recalls. The government agencies did not have much comment on the cases highlighted in the film. The only real argument for their action is the law is the law, however the law maybe interpreted a little too tightly and is definitely not written for today’s agribusiness practices of the small family farms and
Sondra Simpson’s article “Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc.: Strategy with a Higher Mission or Farmed and Dangerous?” alludes to portraying a controversy involving the popular Mexican fast food chain Chipotle and the agricultural industry, but it reads more as a testament to the restaurant’s environmental and marketing achievements. The introductory paragraphs lead us right into a brief explanation of the issue at hand, as well as Chipotle’s intentions and opposition. Simpson hooks her readers with inciting blog titles illustrating the overall feelings of Chipotle’s offended adversaries, such as, “Boycott Chipotle: My Farm is Not Dangerous” and “Chipotle Unnecessarily Tears Down Agriculture to Build a Brand” (qtd by Simpson p 38). These blog posts describe the agricultural industry’s reaction to Chipotle’s latest attempt at spreading their corporate message through a series of webisodes titled “Farmed and Dangerous.”
On December 5, 2012, Daisy Luther, a journalist from Northern California wrote a blog entry on the conspiracy surrounding “certified organic” labels that is claimed by some companies and retailers. She brings up the question of whether these labels being stamped on food can really be verified or are they just a way to empty out the wallets of consumers. In the website The Organic Pepper, the blogger generally gives advice for different problems people encounter on a daily basis. Through her blog entries varying from ways to stay healthy to frugal living, Luther states her opinion of governmental interference on our food supply by citing sources from articles from Natural News and Time Magazine. She first starts out by arguing about how the
Nevertheless, with the progress of the times, people will change the rules in order to discover the new and efficient way. Pollan writes, “A coalition of political and business leaders who for various reasons thought America had far too many farmers for her (or at least their) own good” (50). Nowadays, the high technology is capable of using the machines to plant a wide range of yield; therefore, there are less people engage in farm and the owner can get more profits from
USDA has repeatedly purchased meat from companies that have been involved in major bacterial outbreaks. A handful of children have been sickened because of this. To make matters even worse, the USDA buys the cheapest meat it can get, leaving the meat highly susceptible to having harmful diseases and pieces of bones. Even fast-food restaurants have higher meat standards than the National School Lunch Program ((NSLP)USDA provides the meat for the NSLP). Lastly, chapter nine notifies people that kitchen sinks aren’t as clean as they may think.
In the 2008 documentary Food Inc. Authors Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan offer insight into the food industry in America, including how food is produced. Revealing to the normal everyday american all the things you don't know about how you get the food that in your figure right now. They reveal that the main thing that drives our current food system, like any big corporation, is cost efficiency. These cost cuts do make food cheaper for americans but it also puts their safety at risk.
Therefore, they take advantages of the farmers through genetically modified crops. The farmers have to buy seeds from those companies every years and even mislead by those company. The seeds are non-renewable, if the farmers wants to grow the genetically modified crops continuously, they have to buy the seeds every year, which worsen their
The procedure of how food is made does not come into concern, only the results do. That is how large industrial farms are accepted, because they provide proficiently. The outcome of industrial farms outweighs the negative impacts, at least to industrial farmers. Pollan responds to Berry’s statement by agreeing with him on the issue of the current industrial model being acceptable to some consumers, only due to the fact that
In the article entitled Monsanto's Harvest of Fear, Donald L. Barley and James B. Steele demonstrate that Monsanto already dominates the United States food chain with their genetically modified seeds. They are currently targeting milk production which is just as scary as the corporation's legal battles against the small farmers. This situation leads to a history of toxic infections or diseases. There were many disagreements between Gary Rinehart and a stranger about the innovative seeds. They were under surveillance and an investigator came in the picture.
During here interview, she stated, “The companies don’t want farmers talking They don’t want this story told.” (Kenner, Food Inc.) Morison also claimed to state that, “It doesn’t matter if the chickens get sick. All of the chickens will go to the plant for processing” (Kenner, Food Inc.) From this interviewer’s statements, Carol Morrison is a credible source because he spends most of her time in the chicken farm and she has interacted with many other companies like Food Inc. To show ethos in this documentary, the author used his personal experience along with what the industry has stated.
The three essays assigned this week had several common threads running through them. The strongest core theme is the rapid change in the food cycle in America and the vast changes that have taken place in the way by which we grow, produce, and process the food that average Americans eat. The food we eat now is drastically different from what our grandparents grew up eating and the three essays each examine that in a different way. Another theme is the loss of knowledge by the average consumer about where their food comes from, what it is composed of, and what, if any, danger it might pose to them. “Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear” by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele is a harsh look at the realities of food production in a country where large corporations, like Monsanto, have been allowed to exploit laws and loopholes to bend farmers and consumers to their
“Today in the United States, by the simple acts of feeding ourselves, we are unwittingly participating in the largest experiment ever conducted on human beings.” Jeremy Seifert certainly knows how to get viewers’ attention, as exemplified by the film blurb describing his 2013 documentary, GMO OMG. The frightening depiction of the food industry is one of many efforts to expose consumers of the twenty-first century to the powerful organizations that profit from national ignorance and lack of critical inquiry and involvement. Seifert effectively harnesses the elements of rhetoric throughout his phenomenal argument against remaining complacent about the food industry’s act of withholding of information about genetically modified organisms from
Michael Pollan’s alternative to Factory farming has given a huge insight into a better ethics on food. In “The Animals: Practicing Complexity” Michael Pollan writes about a polyface farm and how it works. The goal of a polyface farm is to emotionally, economically, and environmentally enhance agriculture. Everything on a polyface farm has the potential to be helpful to something else on the farm. Pollan states “The chicken feed not only feeds the broilers but, transformed into chicken crap, feeds the grass that feeds the cows that, as I was about to see, feeds the pigs and the laying hens” (Pollan 345).
Additionally, this article humanizes farmers such as Jenny Schmidt who often get villainized in the industry. On the other hand, The Climate Crisis at the End of Our Fork, by Anna Lappe focuses on the various techniques the author finds wrong with modern day farming. Unlike Jenkins, she advocates for sustainability in a way that rejects artificial farming practices, such as GMOs. Lappe also pushes for an increase in local farms who use organic practices. She believes this would make crops better fit to sustain natural disasters such as droughts, and be overall better for the
Upton Sinclair’s, The Jungle is a novel, which affected the food industry in 1900’s but also in America today. People have learned over the years the truths about the food industry, revealed through Sinclair’s detailed evidence. Sinclair meant to aim at the public’s heart but instead he shot straight at their stomachs. One would easily be convinced to never again buy or eat meat again. Fortunately, people have seen changes from 1906 and have been currently trying to repair the Food Industry.
The documentary Cowspiracy, overall, wants to tell us about the truth behind animal agriculture, which heavily affects the survival of our planet. Basically, the documentary said that animal agriculture is responsible for most of the greenhouse gases that lead to global warming, which also affects our planet. The goal of this documentary is to make us believe that the meat industry, and by extension the fast food industry, are the causes that lead to most of our environmental issues. Also, the documentary stated that the amount of water that is used for cows and other livestock is way too much and our planet will gradually face a lack of water. The solution that they propose is just to become vegetarians, which will solve everything.