Look past the bombastic title, and you'll find a home-grown documentary worth your 90 minutes. Farmageddon, from director Kristin Canty, explores the plight of family farms, frequently family-owned business, small units operated by individuals, unearthing evidence of governmental abuse under the pretense of flimsy jurisdiction. She goes the talking head route, collecting evidence of abuse from community farmers willing to speak out - it would seem that the same laws leveled against industrial food chains are exercised against tiny farms. In a country largely dominated by industry-borne, strictly-regulated, chemically-treated meat and diary, these farmers face bias and government inquiries into the health of their animals (a segment involving an investigation into non-existent mad cow disease prevalence among sheep that ends in the animals being confiscated and slaughtered is just short of infuriating) or the quality of their non-pasteurized milk.
Farmageddon is dominated by idyllic shots of these farms, or rather what’s left of them. For someone lacking a traditional film school education, Canty has a keen of sense of how to tell this story and editor Cob Carlson string the footage together skillfully, never letting the film lose sight of a key point – that while the footage definitely promotes fresh food, raw milk and farmer’s market businesses, it doesn’t stress their superiority. Rather, what ruffles Canty’s feathers (and will surely tousle yours) is the unethical tactics practiced by major government agencies in how they approach these small businesses. In this day and age, most farmers have recording equipment on hand and we are treated to frequently disturbing footage of massive law forces sweeping in to confiscate animals and pour our untold liters of raw milk. A particularly surreal moment shows security footage of police entering a fresh food co-op guns drawn – it begs the question of who these agencies they think they’re dealing with. Are fresh-food businesses equated with eco-terrorism? Is there a farmer with a 12-gauge cradling a pumpkin and willing to die for it around the corner?
This writer realizes that last question is a bit absurd, but there doesn’t seem to be a rationalization for utilizing armed response. The people Canty speaks to in the film are clearly outraged by how they’ve been treated – one family lost their livestock to unfounded claims of mad cow disease, while another was apparently watched day-to-day by government employees. It’s as unfair to call all farmers saints as it would be to judge government employees by those few we see in the film – but if the farmers presented in this film are indicative of the general flock (pardon the pun), then the government crackdown seems way out of touch.
Canty allows the politics of the documentary to even out in the second half, which focuses largely on the prohibitions against raw milk and the farmers who argue for its benefits. She smartly features several professionals discussing the inherent dangers present in raw milk that does not undergo pasteurization, a process of heating the milk for a brief period of time in order to slow down bacterial growth and possibly remove dangerous pathogens. Granted you don’t see many government officials defend their position, with exception of one employee whose answers don’t exactly inspire much faith but do show a professional struggling to explain something she may not be entirely sure of.
There is a decent amount of information thrown at you in Farmageddon, but what remains memorable are images – of animals grazing, of a woman tearing up reading her kid’s letters about animals that were taken away from her and them, of people working with their hands, making a living off the land. The film doesn’t advocate a return to mass individual farming and understands the necessity of the industrial process, but questions why the two cannot co-exist without such harsh punitive measures being taken against the little guy.
Here is the site for the film, where you see where it’s playing and check out their press kit, featuring a wealth of info on organization fighting for farmer’s rights.
"Farmageddon" opens September 23, 2011 and is not rated. Documentary. Directed by Kristin Canty.
