My review of the documentary "Dirt! The Movie"

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Garden soil, composted from vegetable and yard waste. Photo by Sally Kneidel

I was asked to write a review of "Dirt! The Movie," a documentary about our worldwide destruction of soil versus our absolute dependence on soil for our survival. The movie is an inspiring blend of interviews with scientists, farmers, and activists, as well as footage from around the world of the traditional uses and modern abuses of soil.

The first third of the movie explores the origins and contents of healthy soil, followed by testimonials from an impressive array of experts about the value and utility of soil. The filmmakers interviewed workers building with soil; one-third of the world still lives in earthen homes. Winemakers talked about the relationship between soil and subtleties of taste. Biologists dug up worms and fungi with their hands; they and others spoke passionately about the vast array of organisms essential to soil health.

A scary diagnosis
The next third of the film documented how humans are destroying the limited amount of soil we have. Little of this was new to me, yet I felt compelled to write down almost every word of it. The vivid images and words were motivating to me in the way a scary medical diagnosis can be motivating; I wanted to remember everything. To make their point about soil destruction, the filmmakers covered mountaintop removal for mining, agribusiness methods that erode soils and poison ecosystems, desertification that starves African and Indian families, and deforestation of the Amazon "for expansion of soil."  Said biologist Janine Benyus, "We've lost 1/3 of our topsoil in the last 100 years."

Benyus and other scientists denounced the agribiz practice of planting monocultures, which are more vulnerable to weather extremes and pests, leading to the use of pesticides that destroy vital soil organisms. Unhealthy soils lead to the widespread use of nitrogen fertilizer, most of which winds up in surface waters downhill from crop fields. Nitrogen pollution is responsible for the infamous dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, where little survives but jellyfish. Nitrogen fertilizer also forms nitrous oxides that contribute to global warming. Remarked Vandana Shiva, a physicist, farmer, and activist in India, "25% of greenhouse gas emissions are coming from agriculture that has become a war against soil."

Majora Carter is featured
The last third or so of the film was devoted to solutions, spotlighting individuals who are engaged in projects to nurture soil or to help underserved populations connect with gardening. The most impressive of those to me was Majora Carter, founder of Sustainable South Bronx, who extolled the virtues of roof gardens. I gathered that the filmmaker's objective in this portion of the film was to illustrate what each of us might do as individuals, to encourage viewers to take action, however small.

While I agree that "a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step," we don't have time to piddle around.  As Wes Jackson of "The Land Institute" pointed out in the movie, "we have a hundred year window in which to find ourselves. We have come to the end of the extraction economy and we have got to figure out how to live within our means."  Jackson is being generous. We have maybe 20 years to turn things around, before reaching the point of no return environmentally. With that in mind, I would've liked to see the film focus on bigger solutions, like pressing the governments of Brazil and Southeast Asia to protect their remaining trees.  Or suggesting ways to address desertification in Africa.. As the richest country in the world, we are not powerless.

Why is the impact of livestock omitted?
In spite of the movie's merits, I was disappointed that it never mentioned the livestock sector as a major cause of soil loss worldwide. The desertification in Africa is a direct result of overgrazing of livestock. When hoofed animals graze land with too few plants to sustain them, they pull up plants by the roots. They also compact the soil with their hoofs, which keeps rain from permeating the soil.  The result is rootless, dry soil that blows away in the wind - that's desertification.  Nor did the film mention that Brazilian rainforests are cut primarily to raise feed for livestock or to graze livestock.  If we ate plant-based foods only and skipped the livestock, we'd need only a small fraction of the agricultural land we need to support livestock. In which case, forests could be spared. Is that not relevant to soil conservation? What's more relevant than that?

I was also surprised that, during the discussion of seed diversity and the importance of saving and exchanging seeds with other farmers, no mention was made of corporations such as Monsanto that are acquiring ownership and controlling the use of our crop seeds, and genetically altering many of them. (For more about Monsanto, see the Center for Food Safety website or their publication "Monsanto vs. U.S. Farmers".)

Valuable for educators
But overall "Dirt! The Movie" is a film with a crucial message, and well worth watching.It's an excellent movie for a teacher or professor to use for any age student, as an introduction to an ecology unit, or to open any variety of topics involving life on the planet. It's not a gripping documentary, like "Darwin's Nightmare." But valuable.If everyone on the planet were aware of the issues covered in this film, we might stand a chance of actually turning things around before we exhaust our planet's resources...none of which are more necessary than dirt.

Key words: Dirt the movie film review movie review desertification soil topsoil nitrogen pollution dead zone Gulf of Mexico monocultures deforestation erosion agriculture gardening roof gardens Majora Carter Sustainable South Bronx Monsanto

Obama to fight consolidation of farms: good news for small farms and consumers

Text and all photos by Sally Kneidel, PhD

I like Obama. Just like me, he's tired of Smithfield and Tyson and ConAgra and all those mega food corporations running the show and fouling our food.

I heard on NPR yesterday that, starting in 2010, the Justice and Agriculture departments will hold town meetings in farming communities throughout the country, to learn how corporations like Smithfield are buying up small farms and wreaking havoc in agricultural markets. Obama's Justice Department has said that scrutinizing monopolies in agriculture is a top priority. That is very good news!

Bush's attitude was very much the opposite - he favored consolidation. His "let's make a deal" mentality encouraged big corporations to absorb small livestock farms. A monopoly allows corporations to set whatever price they want for animal products in the grocery store. During the Bush administration, mergers were approved between Dean Co. and Suiza Corp. to create the nation's largest milk processor; between Smithfield Foods and Premium Standard Farms to create the largest hog processor; and between JBS and Smithfield Beef to make one of the nation's largest cattle feeders.

A sow in a farrowing crate at a farm with 40,000 hogs, under contract to Smithfield.
Photo by Sally Kneidel

A hog farm under contract to Smithfield. Veggie Revolution co-author Sadie on the left; owner on the right. Photo by Sally Kneidel

Since the 1980s, American agriculture has become increasingly concentrated. Today, less than 2 percent of farms account for half of all agricultural sales. That means a few ag companies are getting bigger and bigger, while smaller ones are disappearing. While Sadie and I were researching our book Veggie Revolution, we learned that North Carolina is losing 1000 farms a year to consolidation. Farmers told us that small farms go out of business because the corporations own most of the slaughterhouses, and the small farmer can't find anyone reliable to process his livestock. Or...he can't price his product as cheaply as the corporations can with their penny-shaving techniques that exploit laborers, livestock, and land.

We talked to hog farmers under contract to Smithfield who said they had tried to go independent, would prefer to be independent, but they couldn't find a facility to slaughter their hogs. Plus, they got threatening letters from the company telling them that they wouldn't be allowed to go independent. They weren't really sure what that threat meant.

We talked to Tyson farmers too who said they much preferred the old days when they weren't under contract to Tyson.

24,000 Tyson broilers crammed into each shed. Photo by Sally Kneidel

A. typical Tyson broiler shed, owned and paid for by the farmer, used by the profit-taking Tyson Corporation. Photo by Sally Kneidel

They told us that being under contract means taking a huge risk, because the farmer has to pay for the land and for each $200,000 animal shed, often mortgaging his family's property to do so. He needs at least five sheds to make enough money to support his family in even a meager manner. The corporation likes it that way. As long as the farmer owns the land and shed, any lawsuit filed because of a leak in the farm's animal-waste lagoon, or airborne ammonia sickening the neighbors, is filed against the farmer not the corporation. How convenient: the farmer takes the risk - the corporation reaps the profits. And if the corporation backs out of the contract, the farmer is wrecked financially, left to pay a million-dollar mortgage on 4 or 5 useless sheds.

We interviewed owners of small farms that sell eggs, and toured a Food Lion egg factory with 1.1 million hens, crammed into cages so small they had to have their beaks cut to keep them from pecking and eating each other. I don't generally eat eggs, but I hear that the eggs from small farms, where laying hens wander around outside all day eating bugs, have lots more nutrients and flavor. I could see that even the color of the yolk was richer.

One lone hen has escaped her tiny cage at a Food Lion egg factory with 1.1 million hens. Photo by Sally Kneidel

The Food Lion hens spend their lives in cages so small they can't stand up fully, much less preen their feathers or stretch. Photo by Sally Kneidel

Thank you Obama, for your willingness to look into this! We deserve wholesome food. Farmers deserve to make a living wage. As it is now, the corporate stockholders are making all the money.

Obama's plan to apparently support small farms and limit consolidation is giving hope to independent farmers, who have complained for years about having fewer and fewer options, and being forced to raise livestock as if they were milk, egg, sausage, and burger machines, rather than living beings that need space and fresh air.

During the upcoming farm-town hearings, the ag dept is likely to hear from people like Don Quamby, a hog farmer from Wellsville, Mo. Quamby was interviewed on the NPR piece I heard.

"With the hogs, it's gotten to be where you can't make any money anymore raising them, because the packers [like Smithfield] own everything," Quamby said.

He said he's deeply concerned about the death of independent hog farms.

"It used to be you had several different markets that you'd go to in our area, several different buyers," Quamby said. "Now we don't have that."

Asked why consumers should care about the change, Quamby said, "Well, because once the packer owns all the market, they can charge whatever price they want then at the consumer level, once the meat gets to the store."

"I've got grandsons — 10, 8 and 6," said Jim Foster, who farms in Montgomery City, Mo., "and their ability to raise hogs like I did, as an independent, depends on whether these guys do their job or not." Foster also was interviewed for NPR.

The Justice Department said that the antitrust division plans to take a hard look at three areas of agriculture.

The first is seed companies. In some markets, Monsanto controls 90 percent of the technology behind genetically-modified seeds for cotton, corn and soybeans. Sadie and I wrote a long chapter about Monsanto in our 2008 book Going Green, about how the company sues farmers whose crops are accidently pollinated by windblown pollen from Monsanto's genetically-modified patented plants. See the document "Monsanto vs, U.S. Farmers" by the Center for Food Safety for lots more info about Monsanto's dirty dealings.

The second segment is beef packing. And the third is dairy, where consolidation has been especially dramatic. In the last decade, more than 4,500 dairy farms disappeared every year.

I can't wait to see what comes of it, especially since I live in N.C., a state saturated with poultry farms, hog farms, and hog waste. We have more hogs than people - second only to Iowa in the number of swine.

God, thank you for that night in November where hopeful people pulled together and elected a man who's courageous enough to look at everything with fresh eyes, with compassionate principles, and with his solid belief that we can do a heck of a lot better with the massive resources this country has at its disposal.

Sources:

John Burnett. "Small Farmers See Promise in Obama's Plan." Morning Edition. August 20, 2009. National Public Radio.

Sally Kneidel and Sadie Kneidel. 2005. Veggie Revolution: Smart Choices for a Healthy Body and a Healthy Planet. Fulcrum Publishing.

Sally Kneidel and Sadie Kneidel. 2008. Going Green: A Wise Consumer's Guide to a Shrinking Planet. Fulcrum Publishing.

Monsanto vs. U.S. Farmers Report. 2007. Center for Food Safety.

See my previous posts about Smithfield, who is suspected of starting the swine flu pandemic:

Smithfield blamed for swine flu by Mexican Press.

This virus is a swine flu and has roots in N.C., the land of Smithfield.

Why is swine flu likely to return in winter? It's not because people are cooped up together in winter.

Keywords:: Obama small farms consolidation Smithfield Tyson healthy food Monsanto