Food, Inc. is a 2008 American documentary film directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Robert Kenner.^[2] The film examines corporate farming in the United States, concluding that agribusiness produces food that is unhealthy, in a way that is environmentally harmful and abusive of both animals and employees. The film is narrated by Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser.^[3][4]

Content[link]

The film's first segment examines the industrial production of meat (chicken, beef, and pork), calling it inhumane and economically and environmentally unsustainable. The second segment looks at the industrial production of grains and vegetables (primarily corn and soy beans), again labeling this economically and environmentally unsustainable. The film's third and final segment is about the economic and legal power, such as food label laws of the major food companies, the profits of which are based on supplying cheap but contaminated food, the heavy use of petroleum-based chemicals (largely pesticides and fertilizers), and the promotion of unhealthy food consumption habits by the American public.^[2][5] It shows companies like WalMart transitioning towards organic foods as that industry is booming in the recent health movement.

Interviewees[link]

• Patricia Buck
• Diana DeGette
• Vince Edwards
• Phil English
• Gary Hirshberg
• Larry Johnson
• William P. Kealey
• Barbara Kowalcyk
• Richard Lobb
• Carole Morison
• Orozco Family
• Moe Parr
• Eduardo Peña
• Stephen R. Pennell
• Michael Pollan
• Michael Renov
• Eldon Roth
• Troy Rousch
• David Runyon
• Joel Salatin
• Eric Schlosser
• Rosa Soto
• Allen Trenkle

Production[link]

Michael Pollan was a consultant and appears in the film. Eric Schlosser co-produced and appears in the film. Participant Media was the production company.^[2] The film took three years to make.^[6][7] Director Kenner claims that he spent large amounts of his budget on legal fees to try to protect himself against lawsuits from industrial food producers, pesticide and fertilizer manufacturers, and other companies criticized in the film.^[6]

An extensive marketing campaign was undertaken to promote the film. A companion book of the same name was released in May 2009.^[4][8][9] Stonyfield Farm, an organic yogurt maker located in New Hampshire, promoted the film printing information about it on the foil lids of 10 million cups of its yogurt in June 2009.^[10][11]

Releases and box office[link]

The film was shown as a preview at the True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri, in February 2009.^[12] It also screened at several film festivals in the spring before opening commercially in the United States on June 12, 2009, in New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.^[5][13] It made $61,400 in its first week.^[14] It expanded to an additional 51 theaters in large cities in the U.S. and Canada on June 19.^{[5][9][13][15][16]} It made an additional $280,000 its second weekend.^[15]

The film was due to be released in the United Kingdom in the summer of 2009.^[17] However, its release was postponed until 12 February 2010.^[18]

Response[link]

The producers invited on-screen rebuttals from Monsanto Company, Tyson Foods, Smithfield Foods, Perdue Farms, and other companies, but all declined the invitation.^[13][19][20] Monsanto says it invited the filmmakers to a producers' trade show,^[21] but they claimed that they were denied press credentials at the event, and were not permitted to attend.^[22] An alliance of food production companies (led by the American Meat Institute) created a website, SafeFoodInc.org,^[23] in response to the claims made in the film.^{[5][9][19][24]} Monsanto also established its own website to specifically respond to the film's claims about that company's products and actions.^[2][20][25] Cargill told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that the company welcomed "differing viewpoints on how global agriculture can affordably nourish the world while minimizing environmental impact, ensuring food safety, guaranteeing food accessibility and providing meaningful work in agricultural communities." But the company criticized the film's "'one-size-fits-all' answers to a task as complex as nourishing 6 billion people who are so disparately situated across the world."^[26]

Fast-food chain Chipotle responded to the documentary in July 2009 by offering free screenings of it at various locations nationwide and stating that it does things differently, which it hopes customers will appreciate after seeing Food, Inc.^[27]

The film's director, Robert Kenner, has denied attacking the current system of producing food, noting in one interview: "All we want is transparency and a good conversation about these things." In the same interview, he went on to say, "...the whole system is made possible by government subsidies to a few huge crops like corn. It's a form of socialism that's making us sick."^[28]

On June 10, 2009, REACT to FILM screened Food, Inc. at the SoHo House in Manhattan, NY followed by a moderated Q&A with executive producer Eric Schlosser.^[29]

Critical reception[link]

The film has been highly rated by critics collectively, with a combined rating of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes,^[30] and 80/100 on Metacritic.^[31] The Staten Island Advance called the documentary "excellent" and "sobering," concluding: "Documentaries work when they illuminate, when they alter how we think, which renders Food, Inc. a solid success, and a must-see."^[32] The Toronto Sun called it "terrifying" and "frankly riveting".^[16] The San Francisco Examiner was equally positive, calling the film "visually stylish" and "One of the year’s most important films..."^[33] The paper called the picture's approach to its controversial subject matter "a dispassionate appeal to common sense" and applauded its "painstaking research and thoughtful, evenhanded commentary..."^[33] The Los Angeles Times, too, praised Food, Inc.'s cinematography, and called the film "eloquent" and "essential viewing".^[34] The Montreal Gazette noted that despite the film's focus on American food manufacture, the film is worth viewing by anyone living in a country where large-scale food production occurs.^[4] The paper's reviewer declared Food, Inc. "must-see", but also cautioned that some of the scenes are "not for the faint of heart."^[4] The St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted that other documentaries and books have examined similar issues before. However, the film was still worth seeing: "The food-conglomerate angle was covered in a less-ambitious documentary called King Corn, and a more-ambitious documentary called The Corporation touched on the menace of the multinationals; but this one hits the sweet spot, and it does it with style."^[35] The review concluded that the most powerful portion of the film focused on Monsanto's pursuit of legal action against farmers it accuses of improperly saving and reselling or replanting Monsanto’s patented seed, in violation of a signed stewardship agreement and contract not to save and resell or replant seeds produced from the crops they grow from Monsanto seed.^[25][35]

The San Francisco Chronicle, while noting the film has a "flair for the dramatic," concluded: "...it throws out one zinger after another, making its case with the methodical and unremitting force of muckrakers trying to radicalize—or at least rouse—a dozing populace."^[3] The Environmental Blog sympathized with the film's message and urged viewers to "vote to change this system."^[36] Other reviews have not been as positive. A commentator at Forbes magazine found the film compelling but incomplete. The picture, the reviewer found, "fails to address how we might feed the country—or world" on the sustainable agriculture model advocated by the filmmakers, and that it failed to address critical issues of cost and access.^[21] The Washington Times said the movie was "hamstrung" because few corporate executives wished to be interviewed by those documentarians, although it agreed that the film was trying to aim for balance.^[37]

Awards[link]

The film tied for fourth place as best documentary at the 35th Seattle International Film Festival.^[38]

The film was nominated for best documentary in the 82nd Academy Awards,^[39] but lost to The Cove.

See also[link]

• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
• Chew on This, an adaptation of Fast Food Nation for younger readers
• Deconstructing Dinner
• Eating Animals
• Fast Food Nation
• The Future of Food
• King Corn
• Million Calorie March: The Movie
• The Omnivore's Dilemma
• The Jungle
• Our Daily Bread (2005 film)
• Super Size Me
• We Feed the World
• Food Matters
• Forks Over Knives

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Food, Inc. at the Internet Movie Database
• Food, Inc. at AllRovi
• Food, Inc. at Rotten Tomatoes
• Excerpts from the movie and an interview with director Robert Kenner on the PBS show NOW
• Interview with director Robert Kenner on the CBSNews.com political Web show, "Washington Unplugged"
• Food, Inc. website on POV

Inc. may refer to:

• Incorporation (business), an abbreviation of Incorporated, a suffix indicating a corporation
• Inc. (magazine), an American business magazine
• Incoming
• Include, included, or including

Inc may refer to:

• Increment, a short form in computer programming languages, particularly assembler mnemonics

See also[link]

• INC (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Robert Kenner is an American film and television screenwriter, television director, film director, film producer, and television producer.

His career began in 1971 as an assistant cinematographer, and produced his first motion picture, 3:15 - The Moment of Truth, in 1984 (although it was not released until 1986). His second feature film did not come until 1991's Lonely Hearts.

His first breakout project was the televised documentary The Lost Fleet of Guadalcanal, which he produced for the National Geographic Society and which aired in 1993 on PBS.^[1] The following year, he directed and produced Russia's Last Tsar for National Geographic and PBS.^[2][3] He also directed and produced America's Endangered Species: Don't Say Good-bye in 1996.^[2][4] The International Documentary Association presented the picture with the Strand Award for Best Documentary.^[5]

Kenner began a long association with the award-winning PBS documentary television program American Experience in 1998. That year he directed and produced the widely reviewed Influenza, 1918 (about the 1918 flu pandemic)^[6] and followed it up with John Brown's Holy War (about abolitionist John Brown) in 2001.^[7][8] His first documentary which he wrote, directed and produced was War Letters, which aired on American Experience in 2001. The documentary is based on the 2001 New York Times best-selling book War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars by historian Andrew Carroll.^[8][9] He produced the episode, "The Road to Memphis," for the 2003 PBS documentary series, The Blues,^[10] and in 2005 produced and directed the Vietnam War documentary, Two Days in October.^[11][12][13] The documentary was the season premiere of American Experience.^[13] The film, which is based on David Maraniss' book They Marched into Sunlight, looks at the parallels between a Viet Cong ambush of a U.S. Army patrol (and the subsequent cover-up of the loss by the American military) and a violent clash between police and student protesters at the University of Wisconsin–Madison—events which occurred 24 hours apart in October 1967.^[12] The episode was nominated for and won the award for Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking at the 2006 Emmy Awards.^[14][15]

In 2008, Kenner produced and directed the documentary film, Food, Inc., which examines large-scale agricultural food production in the United States, concluding that the meat and vegetables produced by this type of economic enterprise leads to inexpensive but environmentally harmful and unhealthy food.^[16]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Robert Kenner at the Internet Movie Database
• Robert Kenner at the TCM Movie Database
• Robert Kenner Films Web site

Masanobu Fukuoka, originator of the natural farming method

Natural farming is an ecological farming approach established by Masanobu Fukuoka (1913–2008), a Japanese farmer and philosopher who described his agricultural philosophy as shizen nōhō (自然農法^?) in Japanese.^[1] It is also referred to as "the Fukuoka Method", "the natural way of farming" or "do-nothing farming". The title refers not to lack of labor, but to the avoidance of manufactured inputs and equipment. Natural farming can also be described as ecological farming and is related to organic farming, sustainable agriculture, agroforestry, ecoagriculture and permaculture but should be distinguished from biodynamic agriculture.

The system exploits the complexity of living organisms that shape each particular ecosystem. Fukuoka saw farming not just as a means of producing food but as an aesthetic or spiritual approach to life,^[2] the ultimate goal of which was, "the cultivation and perfection of human beings".^[3] He suggested that farmers could benefit from closely observing local conditions.^[4] Natural farming is a closed system, one that demands no inputs and mimics nature.^[5]

Fukuoka's ideas challenged conventions that are core to modern agro-industries, instead promoting an environmental approach.^[6] Natural farming also differs from conventional organic farming^[7], which Fukuoka considered to be another modern technique that disturbs nature.^[8]

Fukuoka claimed that his approach prevents water pollution, biodiversity loss and soil erosion while still providing ample amounts of food.^[9]

Principles[link]

Fukuoka distilled natural farming into five principles:^[10]

1. No tillage
2. No fertilizer
3. No pesticides (or herbicides)
4. No weeding
5. No pruning

Though many of his plant varieties and practices relate specifically to Japan, and even to local conditions in subtropical western Shikoku, his philosophy and the governing principles of his farming systems have been applied from Africa to the temperate northern hemisphere. In India, natural farming is often referred to as "Rishi Kheti".^[11][12]

Principally, natural farming minimises human labour and adopts, as closely as practical, nature's production of foods such as rice, barley, daikon or citrus in biodiverse agricultural ecosystems. Without plowing, seeds germinate well on the surface if site conditions meet the needs of the seeds planted there. Fukuoka used the presence of spiders in his fields as a key performance indicator of sustainability.^{[citation needed]}}

The ground always remains covered by weeds, white clover, alfalfa, herbaceous legumes, and sometimes deliberately sown herbaceous plants. Ground cover is present along with grain, vegetable crops and orchards. Chickens run free in orchards and ducks and carp populate rice fields.^[13]

Periodically ground layer plants including weeds may be cut and left on the surface, returning their nutrients to the soil, while suppressing weed growth. This also facilitates the sowing of more seeds in the same area.^[why?]

For summer rice and winter barley grain crops, ground cover enhances nitrogen fixation. Straw from the previous crop mulches the topsoil. Each grain crop is sown before the previous one is harvested by broadcasting the seed among the standing crop. The result is a denser crop of smaller but highly productive and stronger plants.

Fukuoka's practice and philosophy emphasised small scale operation and challenged the need for mechanised farming techniques for high productivity, efficiency and economies of scale. While his family's farm was larger than the Japanese average, he used one field of grain crops as a small-scale example of his system.

Climax ecosystems[link]

Ladybirds consume aphids and are considered beneficial by natural farmers that apply biological control.

In ecology, climax ecosystems are mature ecosystems that have reached a high degree of stability, productivity and diversity (see old-growth forest). Natural farmers attempt to mimic those virtues, thus creating a comparable ecosystem, and employ such advanced techniques as intercropping, companion planting and integrated pest management.^{[citation needed]}

No-till[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2012)

Natural farming recognizes soils as a fundamental natural asset. Ancient soils possess physical and chemical attributes which render them capable of generating and supporting life abundance. It can be argued that tilling actually degrades the delicate balance of a climax soil in the following ways:

1. Tilling may destroy crucial physical characteristics of a soil such as water suction, its ability to send moisture upwards, even during dry spells. The effect is due to pressure differences between soil areas. For more on this subject see water potential. Furthermore, tilling most certainly destroys soil horizons and hence disrupts the established flow of nutrients.

2. Tilling over-pumps oxygen to local soil residents, such as bacteria and fungi. As a result, the chemistry of the soil changes. Biological decomposition accelerates and the microbiota mass increases at the expense of other organic matter, adversely affecting most plants, including trees and vegetables. It is well-known to gardeners and farmers that for plants to thrive, a certain quantity of organic matter (around 5%) must be present in the soil.

3. Tilling uproots all the plants in the area, turning their roots into food for bacteria and fungi. This damages their ability to aerate the soil. Living roots drill millions of tiny holes in the soil and thus provide oxygen. They also create room for beneficial insects and annelids (the phylum of worms). Some types of roots contribute directly to soil fertility by funding a mutualistic relationship with certain kinds of bacteria (most famously the rhizobium) that can fix nitrogen.

Nature farming[link]

Another Japanese farmer and philosopher Mokichi Okada, conceived of a "no fertilizer" farming system in the 1930s which predated Fukuoka. Okada used the same Japanese characters,^[14] which are generally translated in English as "nature farming". Agriculture researcher Hu-lian Xu claiming that "nature farming" is the correct literal translation of the Japanese term.^[14]

See also[link]

	Sustainable development portal
	Systems science portal
	Ecology portal

References[link]