One Big Food Fight

There were no rotten tomatoes splattered against the walls, no one had to scrape mashed potatoes from the ceiling, but it was food fight all the same.

More than 100 people attended the Wilton Library a screening of Chris Taylor’s documentary “Food Fight” on Thursday evening. The film, humorous and informative, explored how American agricultural policy and food culture developed during the twentieth century and how California led a counter-revolution against big agribusiness.

Clip after clip of TV dinners, technicolor supermarket shelves nearly sagging from the weight of chips and dip, flickered across the screen. And farmer and food writers spoke about how mega-food has poisoned the nation.

Taylor, who earned a degree in folklore and mythology from Harvard, shattered the food production fairy tale.

“I wanted to tell a story that was empowering,” Taylor said during a panel discussion after the film. “I wanted to get people into farming, to start a dialogue about making food better.”

In 2005, Taylor co-founded Positively 25th Street, a production company dedicated to making documentaries with social and cultural significance. The first project, Food Fight, premiered at AFI FEST LA in November of 2008. It has since won numerous awards at film festivals. The Betsy and Jesse Fink Foundation for Wilton Library’s Environmental Initiative sponsored the event.

"Food Fight" took Taylor four years to make.  It addressed the rampant use of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides in the nation’s farming. And while that fed a nation that had literally starved during the Great Depression, it also nearly killed family-owned farms. Farming as big business exploded.

As of 2007, the last agricultural census, there are about 2.2 million farms nation-wide, according to the US Department of Agriculture.  Each farm averages about 418 acres.

Bill Duesing, executive director of CT Northeast Organic Farming Association of Connecticut and author of Living on the Earth: Eclectic Essays for a Sustainable and Joyful Future spoke to the packed room after the film.

“A lot of people get the idea that food is important and the way we grow it is important, but, there is an awful lot to learn,” said Duesing.  “So much traditional knowledge has been lost.”

In 1870 between 70 and 80 percent of the population worked in agriculture, in 2008 between 2 and 3 percent of the population has a direct link with agriculture. Some are fighting to reestablish the link.

Resurrecting that knowledge means programs like Wilton High School’s garden. Science teacher Jim Hunter began the garden more than a year ago.

“The garden is a nucleus,” said Hunter.

Students and their families work in the garden. They can keep what they grow and donate surplus to local food pantries.

The idea to re-introduce locally grown, sustainable food began in the 1960s in California.  At the time, Berkeley students protested the Vietnam War. They also protested companies like Dow, Monsanto, and Dupont, which manufactured Agent Orange and napalm, fertilizers and pesticides.

“In this spirit the Organic Food Movement was born,” the film said.

However, eating healthy, sustainable food has so far remained largely a product for the privileged.

“You realize there are millions who don’t have that access,” said Chef Michel Nischan of Westport’s Dressing Room restaurant.

The chef founded the non-profit Wholesome Wave Foundation. With its Nourishing Neighborhoods program, market stands have sprouted in previously excluded communities, such as Bridgeport. People can use food stamps and WIC vouchers.

Critics have said the locavore lifestyle and sustainable gardens aren’t realistic for those living in inner cities.

“The idea is evaporating that people won’t want fruits and vegetables even if you drop them in the middle of underserved communities because they are hooked on happy meals," Nischan said.

Still, to truly change the way Americans eat, the fight must continue, the panelists said.

 “A lot of critics call the film propaganda.  I say its anti-propaganda.  It’s an unfair food fight,” Taylor said.  “I have to fight $12 billion in advertising from McDonalds and Unilever.”