The Future of Food（未来的食物）.pdf

The Future of Food A Film by Deborah Koons Garcia Media Contact: Eleanor Bertino Public Relations (415) 788-1953 With unprecedented clarity, Deborah Koons Garcia’s documentary, The Future of Food, distills the complex technology and key regulatory, legal, ethical, environmental and consumer issues surrounding the changes happening in the food system today -- genetically engineered foods, patenting, and the corporatization of food -- into terms the average person can easily understand. It empowers consumers to realize the consequences of their food choices on our future. The Future of Food opens with historic footage from the 1900’s. We learn that nitrogen fertilizers were developed out of the nitrogen bomb technologies of WWI and insecticides were a by-product of WWII nerve gases. These seemingly small increments established the dominant agricultural paradigm of today, chemical agriculture. Footage from a summit of scientists at Asilomar on the Monterey Bay Peninsula in 1975 on the new technology of genetic engineering reveals a prescient understanding of the issues that would define the next few decades -- concerns about science gone awry weighed against the magnetism of technological possibilities. The Future of Food reveals the personal story of Saskatchewan farmer, Percy Schmeiser, who was sued by the agbiotech giant, Monsanto, when some patented Roundup-resistant canola plants were found on his property. Percy had farmed for over 50 years when a threatening letter arrived from the multinational corporation demanding money from him and his wife for crops they had never planted. Percy and Louise battled Monsanto for years, all the way to the Supreme Court. We visit farmers in Oaxaca, Mexico who discovered their native corn crops had been cross-pollinated with biotech corn even though growing biotech corn was illegal there. Interspersed with the farmers’ accounts are interviews with environmentalists, academics and eminent