| The Future of Food | |
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DVD cover of The Future of Food |
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| Directed by | Deborah Koons Garcia |
| Produced by | Deborah Koons Garcia Catherine Butler |
| Written by | Deborah Koons Garcia |
| Distributed by | Lily Films |
| Release date(s) | May 30, 2004 |
| Running time | 88 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Future of Food is a 2004 American documentary film which makes an in-depth investigation into unlabelled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have made their way onto grocery stores in the United States for the past decade. In addition to the US there is a focus on Canada and Mexico.
It voices the opinions of farmers in disagreement with the food industry and details the impacts on their lives and livelihoods from this new technology, and shines a light on the market and political forces that are changing what people eat. The farmers are outraged that they are held legally responsible for their crops being invaded by "company-owned" genes. The film generally opposes any patenting of life, and particularly the destruction of traditional cultural practices.
The film decries the cost of a globalised food industry on human lives around the world, and highlights how international companies are gradually driving farmers off the land and into poverty and famine in many countries. Potential global dependence of the human race on a limited number of global food corporations is discussed, as is the increased risk of ecological disasters — such as the Irish potato famine (1845–1849) — resulting from the reduction of biological diversity due to the promotion of corporate-sponsored monoculture farming.
There are thousands of special local landrace varieties of corn growing in Mexico. These precious reservoirs, a library of thousands of years of human agriculture, are now being polluted by the invasion of subsidized US corn. There is a fear of major losses to local food systems -- and also that these gene banks will no longer be available to save global industrial agriculture when a new pest arises.
The issue of incorporating a terminator gene into plant seeds is questioned, with concern being expressed about the potential for a widespread catastrophe affecting the food supply, should such a gene contaminate other plants in the wild. Legal stories reported by the film related how a number of farmers in North America have been sued by the Monsanto Company; and the defendant of the Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser case is interviewed.
The film was written and directed by Deborah Koons Garcia, produced by Catherine Butler and Koons Garcia, and premiered on September 14, 2005 at Film Forum in New York City to a full house. It has since been released on DVD in both NTSC and PAL formats. The film is currently available for viewing at Hulu.com where viewers can watch the film for free with a few advertisements placed throughout the film.
The main DVD contains two extra interview features, and there is a second DVD with a number of extras. The main feature can be viewed online for free at the official website, which also sells many versions of the DVD, for the US and International markets, for home viewing, public viewing, and educational use packaged with a college-level curriculum.