[A-List] "Food , Inc."

[c b]

Message: 33
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 19:42:20 +0100
From: "j.martin.pedersen" <m.pedersen at lancaster.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: [Pen-l] "round-up ready" gone wild!
To: pen-l at lists.csuchico.edu
Message-ID: <4C619D8C.4090607 at lancaster.ac.uk>
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On 10/08/10 19:30, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
> What I remember, I remember from the news at the time. Still have not seen
> "Food, Inc.," a situation which I know has to be remedied.

That docu is a great piece of advertising for Wal-Mart's organic section
- presented as the solution to industrial food production's impact on
animal lives and the environment.

Good part analysis of a problem, powerful footage - but terrible,
terrible consumerist conclusion. It is somewhat reminiscent of Gory Al's
take on climate change - in An Inconvenient Truth - where Toyota was
presented as the solution.

-martin


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Message: 34
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:45:28 -0500
From: Jeffrey Fisher <jeff.jfisher at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Pen-l] "round-up ready" gone wild!
To: Progressive Economics <pen-l at lists.csuchico.edu>
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       <AANLkTime5ci7OFjYsjqmdtSeydn-PAQBh+a8dymk_FE_ at mail.gmail.com>
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On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 1:42 PM, j.martin.pedersen <
m.pedersen at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:

>
>
> On 10/08/10 19:30, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
> > What I remember, I remember from the news at the time. Still have not
> seen
> > "Food, Inc.," a situation which I know has to be remedied.
>
> That docu is a great piece of advertising for Wal-Mart's organic section
> - presented as the solution to industrial food production's impact on
> animal lives and the environment.
>
> Good part analysis of a problem, powerful footage - but terrible,
> terrible consumerist conclusion. It is somewhat reminiscent of Gory Al's
> take on climate change - in An Inconvenient Truth - where Toyota was
> presented as the solution.
>
>
Ah, I hadn't heard that about Wal-Mart. That's unfortunate. But as you say,
doesn't need to render the film worthless.

Noted

j


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Message: 35
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 19:51:30 +0100
From: "j.martin.pedersen" <m.pedersen at lancaster.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: [Pen-l] "round-up ready" gone wild!
To: pen-l at lists.csuchico.edu
Message-ID: <4C619FB2.60101 at lancaster.ac.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8



On 10/08/10 19:45, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 1:42 PM, j.martin.pedersen <
> m.pedersen at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 10/08/10 19:30, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
>>> What I remember, I remember from the news at the time. Still have not
>> seen
>>> "Food, Inc.," a situation which I know has to be remedied.
>>
>> That docu is a great piece of advertising for Wal-Mart's organic section
>> - presented as the solution to industrial food production's impact on
>> animal lives and the environment.
>>
>> Good part analysis of a problem, powerful footage - but terrible,
>> terrible consumerist conclusion. It is somewhat reminiscent of Gory Al's
>> take on climate change - in An Inconvenient Truth - where Toyota was
>> presented as the solution.
>>
>>
> Ah, I hadn't heard that about Wal-Mart. That's unfortunate. But as you say,
> doesn't need to render the film worthless.

No, it is just such a shame that an important analysis reaches the
"general public" with such a conclusion.


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Message: 36
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 14:51:49 -0400
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3 at panix.com>
Subject: Re: [Pen-l] "round-up ready" gone wild!
To: Progressive Economics <pen-l at lists.csuchico.edu>
Message-ID: <4C619FC5.80408 at panix.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed

Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
> Ah, I hadn't heard that about Wal-Mart. That's unfortunate. But as you
> say, doesn't need to render the film worthless.
>
> Noted
>

I had similar criticisms:

http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/offshore-food-inc/

?Food, Inc.? is a powerful indictment of corporate farming that
opens at the Film Forum in New York on June 12th. Inspired by the
writings of Eric Schosser (?Fast Food Nation?) and Michael Pollan
(?The Omnivore?s Dilemma?), who provide a kind of tag-team running
commentary throughout the documentary directed by Robert Kenner,
it is the definitive statement on how America produces crappy food
to the detriment of the people who eat it, the animals who are
treated cruelly in farms and slaughterhouses, and the largely
immigrant workforce that labors in unsafe and low wage conditions.
The only benefactors it would appear are the men who run Monsanto,
Purdue, Smithfield and a small group of other huge multinationals
that only see food as the ultimate commodity. When they look at a
tomato, they don?t see something to eat but something to turn into
a dollar no matter the consequences to society.

While I have been paying close attention to these issues for well
over a decade, I was surprised to learn that I only knew half the
story. It is far worse than I imagined, especially when you are
dealing with camera images rather than words on a page. I was
shocked to see what chickens raised in factory conditions look
like. The film?s producer went to dozens of large-scale chicken
farmers who were under contract to Purdue or Tyson to get
permission to film inside a chicken coop (a warehouse would
describe it better) but were thwarted each time, only finally to
get Carole Morison?a Purdue supplier?to allow them inside even if
it meant the end of her business. She was disgusted by what was
taking place and wanted to get it off of her chest.

She had already put up screened windows so her chickens could see
daylight over the objections of Purdue, but had no control over
how the animals were raised. The chickens had been bred to have
larger breasts and mature twice as fast as normal with the
intention of supplying the supermarkets with a more cost-effective
product. What this does not take into account is the inability of
a hen to walk properly with the extra weight on top placed on
spindly underdeveloped legs. As a consequence, the sheds were
filled with crippled hens crawling about the floor, often close to
death or already dead. The floor of the warehouse was littered
with these casualties to the profit nexus and their feces. No
wonder Purdue and Tyson didn?t want you to see how your food
looked before it came to the meat bins at your local supermarket.

Despite the grizzly aspect of factory farming that is depicted
throughout the film in a kind of homage to Upton Sinclair?s ?The
Jungle?, the branding for these commodities tries to evoke a
long-lost period when farming was a far more local and organic
mode of production. The pictures on the labels for well-known food
products make you think you have been transported to Dorothy?s
farm in the Wizard of Oz when the reality behind the label is much
more like Charlie Chaplin?s ?Modern Times?. In one particularly
grotesque scene, we are in the control room of a mega-corporation
where a bank of computers oversees the production of ground beef
at various far-flung farms under its control. The key to success,
the owners tell us, is that the beef is sterilized with chemicals
in order to prevent e-coli disease. Apparently this is exactly
what Burger King et al are looking for since they anticipate that
more than 90 percent of all fast food burger patties will be
produced this way in a few years.

Unfortunately, Barbara Kowalcyk, one of the interviewees, was not
fortunate enough to have had one of these chemically treated
hamburgers served to Kevin, her 2 ? year old son, on a vacation
some years ago. The meat carried e-coli bacteria that killed him
after several days of agony in a hospital bed. Now she campaigns
to see ?Kevin?s Law? passed in order to close down any plants that
have repeated violations of contaminated meat. Surprise, surprise.
Washington has not seen fit to pass the bill.

Although I strongly urge my readers to see this movie, I do feel
obligated to offer some criticisms that get to the heart of my
differences with Schlosser and Pollan, no matter how much I
applaud their work. A significant part of the movie is devoted to
an examination of Stonyfield yogurt, a product that is always in
my refrigerator especially since yogurt is a staple of the Turkish
dishes I enjoy preparing. The CEO of Stonyfield is one Gary
Hirshberg who is seen conferring with Walmart representatives who
were about to introduce his products to their vile stores.
Hirshfield justifies dealing with Walmart because he believes that
there is no alternative to capitalism, even though he doesn?t
quite use those words. If we are going to make wholesome food
grown in conditions respectful to the environment and to animals,
you need retailers like Walmart to make the organic sector grow.

The press notes for ?Food, Inc.? quotes Walmart on this score:

?Actually, it?s a pretty easy decision to try to support things
like organics or whatever it might be based on what the consumer
wants. We see that and we react to it. If it?s clear that the
customer wants it, it?s really easy to get behind it and to push
forward and try to make that happen.?

? Tony Airosa, chief dairy purchaser for the nation?s largest
retailer, Wal-Mart, which recently began carrying
organically-produced food in its store. Wal-Mart has since stopped
carrying milk containing growth hormone.

In my view, it is utopian to think that the factory food system
will be transformed incrementally in this fashion. The Monsantos,
Purdues, Tysons and Smithfields of this world are not going to be
displaced by organic farming for the simple reason that they were
produced by the forces of production that have taken a century to
mature. American society is under enormous pressure to compete
with other capitalist powers in an epoch of stagnating profits. As
such, factory farming is geared to the economic imperatives of a
nation that is being forced to attack the living standards of
workers and farmers alike.

If any evidence of the bankruptcy of the system is needed, as well
as its talent for self-deception, you can start with the White
House itself?a symbol of American corporate power and its strategy
for continued world domination.

When Michelle Obama planted an organic garden on the White House
lawn, Michael Pollan hailed the move in the Huffington Post:

       Perhaps the most encouraging action so far has come from the East
Wing, where Michelle Obama has been speaking out about the
importance of real, fresh food, home cooking and gardening. By
planting an organic garden on the White House lawn, she launched a
thousand victory gardens (vegetables seed is suddenly in short
supply), gave conniptions to the pesticide industry (which wrote
urging her to use some of their ?crop protection products? whether
she needed them or not), and at a stroke raised the profile and
prestige of real food in America.

He also was encouraged by Obama?s appointments:

       Tom Vilsack has sounded a welcome new note at the Department of
Agriculture, where he has appointed a proven reformer ? Kathleen
Merrigan ? as his deputy, and emphasized his commitment to
sustainability, local food systems (including urban agriculture);
putting nutrition at the heart of the department?s nutrition
programs (not as obvious as it might sound), and enlisting farmers
in the fight against climate change. He has been meeting with the
kinds of activists and farmers who in past administrations stood
on the steps of the USDA holding protest signs.

I wonder if Michael Pollan watched the movie he appeared in, since
Monsanto was rightfully pilloried as using its control over
genetically modified soybean seeds as a way of maintaining a
monopoly over farmers, who once had the right to reuse seeds.
(Monsanto patented the seeds and sues any farmer its detectives
find in violation.)

This is what the Organic Consumers Association has to say about
Tom Vilsack:

TAKE ACTION TO STOP VILSACK?S CONFIRMATION

* Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack?s support of genetically
engineered pharmaceutical crops, especially pharmaceutical corn:

http://www.gene.ch/genet/2002/Oct/msg00057.html

http://www.organicconsumers.org/gefood/drugsincorn102302.cfm

* The biggest biotechnology industry group, the Biotechnology
Industry Organization, named Vilsack Governor of the Year. He was
also the founder and former chair of the Governor?s Biotechnology
Partnership.

* When Vilsack created the Iowa Values Fund, his first poster
child of economic development potential was Trans Ova and their
pursuit of cloning dairy cows.

* Vilsack was the origin of the seed pre-emption bill in 2005,
which many people here in Iowa fought because it took away local
government?s possibility of ever having a regulation on seeds-
where GE would be grown, having GE-free buffers, banning pharma
corn locally, etc. Representative Sandy Greiner, the Republican
sponsor of the bill, bragged on the House Floor that Vilsack put
her up to it right after his state of the state address.

* Vilsack has a glowing reputation as being a shill for
agribusiness biotech giants like Monsanto. Sustainable ag
advocated across the country were spreading the word of Vilsack?s
history as he was attempting to appeal to voters in his
presidential bid. An activist from the west coast even made this
youtube animation about Vilsack.

The airplane in this animation is a referral to the controversy
that Vilsack often traveled in Monsanto?s jet.

Despite these criticisms, I strongly recommend ?Food, Inc.? that
opens at the Film Forum in New York on June 12th.

Official website: http://www.foodincmovie.com/