[url=http://youtu.be/5e1QFWmywbo]http://youtu.be/5e1QFWmywbo[/url]
[b]Growing Change[/b]
– a journey inside Venezuela’s food revolution
[url=http://www.growingchange.com.au]htttp://www.growingchange.com.au[/url]
A few companies dominate the global food system. A few billion people are
hungry for change.
How will we feed the world in the future?
Growing Change is an inspiring documentary that looks at one of the most
exciting experiments in the world to grow a fair and sustainable food system.
In Venezuela from fishing villages to cocoa plantations to urban gardens a
growing social movement is showing what’s possible when communities not
corporations start to take control of food.
[b]Synopsis[/b] (long)
Simon is from a long line of farmers but has never had anything to do with
food production himself. Food is just there – everywhere. But against the
backdrop of the global food crisis the filmmaker begins a journey to find out
how the world will feed itself in the future. The journey takes him into his
family’s past sees him working on an organic farm but eventually ends him in
an unlikely place: the oil-rich South American nation of Venezuela.
Apparently a giant social experiment is underway there with communities
overcoming massive odds to grow a fair and sustainable food system.
On small fishing boats in the Caribbean with machete-wielding cocoa
harvesters in the depths of the jungle and in urban gardens on traffic islands
in the overpopulated capital we go inside Venezuela’s so-called “food
revolution”. We see a microcosm of the ailing global food system but one
that’s undergoing profound transformation.
The documentary begins with an investigation of the 2008 global food crisis
looking at the long-term underlying causes. Will expanding large-scale
energy-intensive agriculture be the solution or reinforce the problem? If we
already produce enough food to feed the world why do so many people go
hungry?
After hearing about efforts in Venezuela to develop a more equitable and
sustainable food and agriculture system the filmmaker heads there to see if
it’s working and find out what we might be able to learn from this giant
experiment.
We meet people in the cities and in the countryside and learn that while
Venezuela once had a strong agriculture sector it was left behind as the
country became a major oil exporting economy in the 20th century. After
decades of urbanisation government neglect for agriculture and dependence
on food imports Venezuela faced a food crisis of its own. In many ways the
country was a microcosm of the challenges facing much of the world today.
The documentary takes us through a new food system as it’s being
constructed almost from scratch.
We meet farmers who are gaining access to land for the first time and
working in cooperatives to break the country’s reliance on imports. The stakes
are high. Three hundred peasant farmers have been killed in recent years by
mercenaries hired by large landholders.
From the fertile plains to the lush costal villages where we meet cocoa
producers who are now protected against being paid below the minimum
price and are now involved in the local processing of chocolate rather than
just exporting raw beans.
Nearby we head out to sea with fisherfolk who are benefitting from new
regulations that ban industrial trawling.
And in the chaotic metropolis of Caracas we find urban gardens thriving and
supplementing diets with fresh organic produce. We go inside shops where
the urban poor have access to affordable food for the first time.
It’s all part of a country-wide process towards “food sovereignty” driven by
communities and the government. At the core of the process are principles of
social justice and sustainability.
This is an inspirational story full of lively characters thought provoking
insights stunning scenery and ideas to transform the food system.