Three out of
Five stars
Running time:
94 mins
Informative, rage-inducing documentary that hits a variety of targets but a lot of the content has been covered better elsewhere and its
appeal is limited by focussing exclusively on the U.S.
What's it all about?
Directed by Robert Kenner, Food, Inc. details the harsh realities of
large-scale agricultural food production in the U.S. The main thrust of
the film is that most of the food sold in American supermarkets is
produced by a small number of multinational corporations, who, far
from the pastoral, healthy-looking farming fantasy plastered over
their products' packaging, actually use intensive industrial methods
that lead to worker exploitation, animal abuse, environmental damage,
outbreaks of E. coli and salmonella and bullying on a horrific scale.
The film also features lengthy contributions from the likes of Eric
Schlosser (author of Fast Food Nation) and various other experts,
activists and people whose livelihood depends on the food industry,
most notably chicken farmer Carole Morison, whose refusal to implement
window-less chicken houses leads to punitive measures by the food
companies and seed-cleaner Moe Parr, who's being taken to court by
Monsanto for encouraging other farmers to use his seed-cleaning
system, because otherwise farmers are forced to buy a patented,
genetically-engineered, pesticide-resistant soybean seed from, yes,
Monsanto.
The Good
A lot of the material in Food, Inc. has, unfortunately, been covered
much better elsewhere, such as in Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me,
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price or even in Fast Food Nation.
Consequently, the most shocking revelations in Food, Inc. concern
information we haven't heard before, such as the fact that companies
routinely do deals with immigration authorities where they betray a
proportion of their own workforce in return for prosecutors turning a
blind eye.
The Great
Similarly, sixty-something Moe Parr's story is a heartbreaking David
vs. Goliath story where David basically gets stomped into the ground,
but the point is clearly made that food companies are terrified of
both criticism and dissent and will go to great lengths to stamp it
out.
However, perhaps the most rage-inducing moment comes in the section on
cronyism, in which a large number of people responsible for passing
food laws are all revealed to have close ties to the food industry.
Worth seeing?
Food, Inc is a well researched, informative documentary that will give you
a bad case of rage. Worth seeing.