See how you can help wrap up production!
There have been several high profile studies of the CIW’s Campaign for Fair Food of late, beginning with Barry Estabrook’s “Tomatoland” and continuing, most recently, with the US premiere of the Canadian documentary “Payback” at the Tribeca Film Festival last week.
But as “Tomatoland” was published just a touch too early to include a much-needed chapter on the the concrete changes underway since the implementation of the Fair Food Program, and “Payback” focused on the relationship between workers and growers to the exclusion of a broader look at how the industry as a whole is paying back the decades-old societal debt owed to farmworkers for the long-standing undervaluing of their labor, there remains space in the media for a closer look at the actual changes in progress in Florida’s tomato fields and the crucial role of the retail food giants in making those changes happen, and making them stick.
And into that space has stepped a new film — now nearly finished shooting and well into the editing stage — entitled “Food Chain” (click here to see the trailer and how you can help wrap up production).
Here’s an excerpt from a recent blog post by “Food Chain” director, Sanjay Rawal (“Meet your Food Chain,” civileats.com):
 “… The deeper we explored the oppression, however, the more we became attracted by the possibilities of transformation. We began to meet a number of extremely powerful people in the farmworker community, workers that embraced their duty in the food chain while lashing back at the subjugation they experienced.
Some groups, like the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, continue to change the structure of the food chain itself, going straight to consumers of the top purchasers like McDonalds and Trader Joe’s to demand an increase in wages and working conditions. We learned that the policies of the large buyers, in particular the supermarkets, are at the heart of the problems workers face. Supermarkets are no different from other multibillion dollar corporations. They dominate agribusiness and either know of the violations at its base or enjoy a willful ignorance. Food justice begins with a transformation of the grocery industry…” read more |
We’d definitely watch that! So check out the trailer, and, if you can, drop a little something in the collection plate over at the “Food Chain” link at kickstarter.com.
(By the way, if you like the photos in this post, by one Forest Woodward, you’ll probably love the film, as Forest is part of the crack artistic team that has produced some truly stunning footage over the past many months, much of which you can get a taste of over at the Fast for Fair Food site, where we were the fortunate recipients of his handiwork in reporting that historic action.)