Exploration 4: Joe Weingates

The most important thing to me that stood out in the movie "Fresh " was that more and more pesticide is needed year after year just to produce the same protection to the plants. It never occurred to me that my dad would develop a tolerance to the pesticides that we use. The other one is that the antibiotics that we are putting into the livestock is just killing off the weak diseases and bringing out more serious mutated diseases. Professor John Ikerd says that the only way to produce the livestock in such confined conditions today is from the use of antibiotics. That's a scary thought that what we are using to help produce more livestock in confined space is really bringing more serious diseases to surface that we don't know how to treat since it already has a strong tolerance to the antibiotics we've already been pumping it with. So on that note if I were to review the film i'd focus on the pesticides and antibiotics. I Feel like one of their major strengths was that they just kept coming with fact after fact. I think its its powerful when you can say all this stuff and have off the statistics and studies right behind you to back it up.something that I feel like wasn't as strong in the film was that it didn't really visually put into your mind how messed up the conditions, and treatment of the animals were. I feel if they put a couple more videos of how they were treated it would have really stuck that it is not right. I can't really relate to this video at all other then that these videos are affecting people like my sister who will not eat pork because she has seen how it is processed and what part of the pigs are used in a lot of the food.

What I searched for i left a little broad and said "What the problems with feeding our livestock antibiotics". I found that when we do this it actually makes the perfect conditions for bacteria with stronger resistance to thrive and multiply. And when they want, those stonger bacteria can spread to the soil, workers, animal waste, or air to find new hosts to contaminate. The CDC even stated "much of antibiotic use in animals is unnecessary and inappropriate and makes everyone less safe."

http://www.nrdc.org/food/saving-antibiotics.asp

Exploration 4:Fresh by Miguel Radilla

The film fresh took an appropriate (PG) path to the insight of industrial farming by not showing the disturbing graphic visuals of what pertains to industrial farming of treating of animals (goriness). Their approach was more of lighting a fuse to inquire of what really goes on behind the close doors of industrial farming rather than opening the doors and showing it first-hand(goriness). Important ideas that this film offered me was the repercussions of feeding meat to herbivores, trade offs versus spraying and not spraying pesticides, growth hormones, nature doesn’t have monocultures, natural farming versus industrial farming, and my favorite are the big players who are “controlling seed to plate.” The film definitely sparked curiosity on who are these big players who are “controlling seed to plate.” I related to this film on their idea of eating healthy instead of consuming the “junk/fast food” I think it’s common for us to turn our shoulders and not think of what we’re actually consuming. Like anybody else, if it taste good, I am not going to ask questions. I have a friend that came over to my house and was literally shocked of what he saw in my fridge. He was like “dude, you don’t have anything organic man?” I said to him “quit being such a hypochondriac man, and accept the good tasty sinful things in life.” Once I saw the film, I think it was the last straw that broke the camel’s back and I bought organic groceries that very same day, which was on Monday haha. No joke, bought some organic honey, organic potatoes, organic yogurt, etc. I am actually looking into local natural farms around Delaware as well. I am not saying I am going 100 percent organic, but it definitely made me transition to the organic side of things. I am still going to enjoy some tasty Chinese food, Buffalo Wild Wings, and the all day breakfast menu that McDonald’s is really enticing. Thanks to the film, I am more aware and will second-guess on what I consume.

            This film made me curious of these big players that supply industrial farms. The film mentions that they’re four big players, soon to be three. As aforementioned, the film says that these particular players are the ones who are controlling from seed to plate and the industrial farms are entirely captive and dependent on these big companies. For example one of those companies are ADM and their CEO is Patricia Woertz. “As of 2009, Forbes ranked her as the 26th Most Powerful Woman in the World, and she was the top-ranking woman on Fortune 500's list of the most powerful CEOs around the world.” This already is a sheer sign that these companies are really powerful and with power comes lobbying.  Last year alone ADM had 82.27B dollar sales/revenue.

http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-businessmen/ceos/patricia-woertz-net-worth/

http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/adm/financials

Exploration 4: Fresh Response from Brian Klunder

In my opinion, the most important ideas to take from this movie is that Industrial Agriculture is unsustainable for the environment since mono-culture ends up destroying the other genetic variations of produce that is not sweet, or large and also destroys the surrounding environment to make room for the mass production of a single crop. An example of this are the Another idea to take from this movie is mass production of antibiotic resistant diseases that come from the overuse of antibiotics on the animals they integrate into small, closed off sections of the slaughterhouses, which will later on have some sort of medical impact when the diseases become more difficult to kill off. The film explores these ideas by showing scenes of a standard industrial farm and all the room it occupies to produce this one specific crop for consumption, and inside looks on how cramped and disgusting the spaces can be when a large group of animals are stuck in one area which is a great scenario where diseases can become sporadic and spread incredibly fast. If I was going to review the film, i'd focus on both perspectives and understand the reasoning for both sides of why they choose to go along the path they have chosen for themselves. The strong side of the film is its speakers that the producer has chosen to represent the side of fresh, natural agriculture to give it more impact to what the message of this movie is trying to say to people that are looking from the outside of food production. It also comes from the information that is provided by this film about the major issues that come industrial agriculture such as, farmers being dependent of companies' genetically modified seeds to stay in the business due to their competitiveness to natural farming and the soil being drained of nutrients rapidly for mono-culture. The weak side of the film is that it does not go further into industrial agriculture and why this method of farming is preferred. There is a lack of details within the inner workings of industrial agriculture which gives the viewers a weak perspective of what makes industrial agriculture a part of our society.

I had a question about what are the issues that originate from planting one specific plant on a humongous section of reserved land. The problems that come from mono-culture revolve around fertilizers, pesticide, and herbicide use, which is required to maintain a healthy field of crops and ends up having a toll on the species of birds and insects that dwell nearby and the environment it's based on. The chemical fertilizer runoff result in oxygen-deprived zones as they greatly promote algae and plant growth, which then quickly accumulates and takes up a massive supply of oxygen from underwater animals and insects and kills off a majority of them. The herbicides and pesticides are widely used onto crop fields, killing off those that live in that area with the growing crops. With the pests and plants coming into contact with these deadly chemicals, the helpful insects and birds end up becoming poisoned with their interactions on the farm and result in a decline in their respective species since they do not expect any dangers when coming onto the fields.

http://nature.berkeley.edu/~miguel-alt/modern_agriculture.html

Exp 4 Rachel Nicodemus

The most important evidence offered, in my opinion were all the benefits of farming and raising animals "the old way". The documentary talks about how people need to understand animals and plants, and respect them, in order to produce them correctly. People interviewed in the film say things like "Take care of your grass and feed and it will take care of the animals" (Fresh). People after industrialization, started to believe that many different pesticides and antibiotics were necessary, but in fact they only became necessary when people made it a necessity, mainly as a result from too much mono culture. If I were to review the film I would focus on facts, and how valid they were in this documentary. Some strengths would definitely be that it draws ones attention, emotionally but also it just makes you think... a lot. It makes you think about how things got this way and what could fix it and even things like "what do I eat on a regular basis?"

In the film they talk about how it is a recently proven fact that we do not need big industrialized farms to "feed the world" in fact, doing it the natural way it could feed the world, and feed it better. During the film I was really wandering how many people have turned away from the big industrialized farms and went back to the "old way" of things. That question led me to some other shocking facts like that farmers spend around $4.1 billion dollars on pesticides annually. Also I found that the top major crops in America are corn and soybeans, planted on around 157.8 million acres. That's more than all of the acreage (117.4 million) Americas other top crops like hay, wheat, cotton. rice, and sorghum (grain) are planted on. Reading these facts, and man more, I came to a conclusion that America still has a long way to work, basically backward, in order to fix these many issues of pesticide and antibiotic use and the practices of mono culture all over out country.

(http://www.epa.gov/agriculture/ag101/croppesticideuse.html)

Exploration 4: Fresh Response from Andrea Carwile

Ana Sofia Joanes produced a very informative documentary on the need for fresh food in our world today. Industrial farming has taken the concept of natural food away from this world and the movie Fresh was a step in the direction of spreading awareness about the terrible things going on within the agriculture industry. Throughout the movie the farmers kept stating the fact that animals and food are no longer being raised so they are healthy, rather they are being raised so that they grow in large amounts as quickly as possible. I think that if I were to write a review on this film, I would focus on industrial farming vs. organic farming in terms of how they are raising their livestock and crops . The producer showed one specific clip of a chicken house. In the film, it was stated that there were upwards of 30,000 chickens in one house. This scene did a great job at providing a visual example that it is unfair to raise the animals in such large amounts. The animals were barely able to move. That would be one important piece of information to support the film's statement that industrial farms need to regulate how many animals they are choosing to use. Another important aspect of how industrial farms are choosing to raise animals is they are taking away the natural eating habits of the animals for the sole fact that they want the livestock to grow bigger faster. Within the film one of the famers stated "Let's treat an herbivore like an herbivore first" because the cows are being fed dead cow meat. This is another strength because he was so clear in what he thinks will solve the problems of industrial faming. How animals are being treated on farms relates to me because my family owns a small farm and I would never want to see those animals treated like that. I think the movie is a great way of speaking against what is going on in industrial farms.

I questioned what the negative effects of monoculture are since nature doesn't have monocultures. I realize that in theory it is good for the economy, but I found that it does serious damage to the ecosystem surrounding the monoculture area. A monoculture, in fact, decreases nature's ability to be diverse. It is also much more susceptible to pests and fungi, which is why we come to spray monocultures. As a result of that, the plants are no natural. monocultures create a large chain of events that seemingly increase the negative habits in industrial farming.

http://twinqu.com/disadvantages-and-negative-effects-of-monoculture-farming/

Exploration 4: Fresh response Cole Haferman

     What stuck with me most from the film Fresh by ana Sofia Joanes was the idea of a monoculture and how they are impossible and do not exist in nature. I had never heard of such a thing before and took it for granted that the vast fields of corn and soybeans seen along the roads of Ohio were completely normal on their own. While I knew pesticides and fertilizers were used I was unaware that it is only through them that these large fields are seemingly possible. One thing this film did right was to focus largely on solutions to the problem of industrialized agriculture rather than glorifying its mistakes and weaknesses in the most gruesome way possible and many similar documentaries have done. This is what I would chose to focus my review on if I were to chose this film for my review. On a personal level I relate most to the idea that above all else "Americans fear inconvenience" and I believe this to be true on many levels with many applications of the word inconvenience to our daily lives.
     For this part of the blog I decided to stick with the idea of monocultures and where they are commonly seen throughout history and why they are not considered sustainable for modern farmers.
Before the use of pesticides and fertilizers was a common practice as it is today crops were rotated in fields to replenish the nutrients found in the soil and not cause the soil to be infertile. This over usage of a singular crop in part led to the cause of the dust bowl in the 1930's. It is because of the use of modern fertilizers that farmers today are able to plant their fields with corn year after year and not have to worry about depleting the soil, the nutrients are sprayed right on the plants.

http://www.cropscience.org.au/icsc2004/symposia/2/1/1128_cookrj.htm

Exploration 4- Fresh Response Devon Beck

I took a lot out of this movie. I didn't know a lot of things. I knew that the way the food industry was corrupt but I never imagined half the information I found out during this film.

The movie had a lot of good qualities and very few bad ones. I liked how the film had real life farmers who worked in the industry. When watching the movie I got a better sense of the way that they thought when it came to things like pesticides and the way that the livestock is treated.  I never really knew the thought process of farmers. I thought that they just did their job without thinking about what was happening. I liked how the film used comparison and contrast. As I watched I noticed how much better the animals looked when they were left to roam freely instead of being trapped with thousands of other animals. I wished the film would have given you the views of more people then just the selected ones it had. I liked that the film gave you a glimpse into how little people make when they are part of the farming industry. I wish the film would have showed you how businessman view the food industry from their perspectives. I would focus more on the cruel ways that the animals are treated. I feel like if people saw more of how the animals were treated they would be more inspired to act on finding better ways of handling them. A quote that really struck me in the movie was one that Joel Saletin said.  He was talking about the land when he said " Leave it in better shape for the next generation. Better than I found it." This really stuck out to me because I think that we all should try to take care of the land.  I also think this is a good quote because we also need to provide a better food system for future generations.

Through out the film I wondered if their were any laws to protect farm animals from abuse or neglect. I found out that there are no federal laws for farming animals. I found out that their are cruelty statuses but when it comes to farming animals nothing is done to stop the practices. The animals are put through awful procedures without any type of pain medicine given to them.


http://www.humanesociety.org/forms/contact_us/farm_animals_contact.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/