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Food and Sustainable Agriculture (Ages 12-14)

11 films
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It’s never too early to learn about the food we eat – where it comes from, and at what cost. This playlist introduces concepts of sustainable food systems and highlights the communities working to reduce the impact of our food on the environment. Pour visionner cette sélection en français, cliquez ici. Films in This Playlist Include The Fight for True Farming Island Green Cafeteria Fragile Harvest Hand.Line.Cod David Suzuki Virtual Classroom: Our Food Systems – Are You Hungry for Change? Organic Prophecies Laxwesa Wa – Strength of the River Turning Tides Theater of Life Sovereign Soil

Up next: The Fight for True Farming
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Food and Sustainable Agriculture (Ages 12-14)

It’s never too early to learn about the food we eat – where it comes from, and at what cost. This playlist introduces concepts of sustainable food systems and highlights the communities working to reduce the impact of our food on the environment.

Pour visionner cette sélection en français, cliquez ici.

Films in This Playlist Include
The Fight for True Farming
Island Green
Cafeteria
Fragile Harvest
Hand.Line.Cod
David Suzuki Virtual Classroom: Our Food Systems – Are You Hungry for Change?
Organic Prophecies
Laxwesa Wa – Strength of the River
Turning Tides
Theater of Life
Sovereign Soil

Playlist

  • The Fight for True Farming
    The Fight for True Farming
    Eve Lamont 2005 1 h 29 min
    In this documentary, crop and animal farmers in Quebec, the Canadian West, the US Northeast and France offer solutions to the social and environmental scourges of factory farming. Driven by the forces of globalization, rampant agribusiness is harming the environmemt and threatening the survival of farms. The proliferation of GMO crops is a further threat to biodiversity as well as to farmers' autonomy. In Europe as well as North America, a current of resistance bringing together farmers and consumers insists that it is possible - indeed imperative - to grow food differently.
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  • Island Green
    Island Green
    Millefiore Clarkes 2013 25 min
    This short documentary takes a look at the changing face of PEI's agricultural industry. Once famous for its spuds and red mud, this tiny island province now has higher than average cancer and respiratory illness rates. Is there a link to industrialized farming? Rather than dwelling on PEI’s worrisome monocropping practices, Island Green dares to ask: What if PEI went entirely organic?

    The stirring words of PEI-born poet Tanya Davis are coupled with beautiful imagery and poignant stories from the island’s small but growing community of organic farmers, reminding us that we can rob the land only so much before it robs us of the nourishment we need for life. Island Green is ultimately a story of hope and healthy promise.
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  • Cafeteria
    Cafeteria
    Francine Hébert 2015 24 min
    This short documentary looks at how an entire community mobilized to improve the cafeteria menu at a primary school in Cocagne, New Brunswick. Rallying behind this noble cause, residents put their shoulder to the wheel, promoting products from local farmers over those of multinational corporations. Everyone gets involved to make healthy eating a common goal as well as a learning opportunity.
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  • Fragile Harvest
    Fragile Harvest
    Robert Lang 1986 48 min
    How safe is the future of the world’s food? Narrated by David Suzuki, this documentary explores a growing crisis in world agriculture. Plant breeding has created today’s crops, which are high yielding but vulnerable to disease and insects. To keep crops healthy, breeders tap all the genetic diversity of the world’s food plants. But that rich resource is quickly being wiped out.
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  • Hand.Line.Cod
    Hand.Line.Cod
    Justin Simms 2016 13 min
    Set in the coldest waters surrounding Newfoundland’s rugged Fogo Island, this short film follows a group of “people of the fish”—traditional fishers who catch cod live by hand, one at a time, by hook and line. Filmmaker Justin Simms takes viewers deep inside the world of these brave fishermen. Travel with them from the early morning hours, spend time on the ocean, and witness the intricacies of a 500-year-old tradition that’s making a comeback.
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  • Turning Tides
    Turning Tides
    Mathieu D'Astous 2007 24 min
    In this documentary short, summer trippers line up for the famous local fried clams and whole families dig for the white mollusc in the tangy air of the sandbars. But as the clams dwindle, so do these tableaux from Maritime culture. For commercial fishermen it's the end of a livelihood; for others, it's the death of a tradition. Can this really be the end of a resource that used to be as plentiful as the air we breathe? In French with English subtitles.
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  • Sovereign Soil
    Sovereign Soil
    David Curtis 2019 1 h 31 min
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  • David Suzuki Virtual Classroom: Our Food Systems - Are You Hungry for Change?
    David Suzuki Virtual Classroom: Our Food Systems - Are You Hungry for Change?
    Dan Thornhill 2016 1 h 9 min
    The NFB, in partnership with the David Suzuki Foundation and Humber College invite Canadian students to get together—virtually—and talk about the impact that modern food systems might be having on our health, land and food security. Environmentalist and broadcaster Dr. David Suzuki is joined by J.B. MacKinnon, Utcha Sawyers, and Tanya Davis, whose compelling poem appears in the NFB film Island Green, a look at conventional and organic farming on Prince Edward Island. Co-hosted by the NFB, DSF and Humber College, this special event is geared towards high school seniors, student groups and college and university classes.
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  • Organic Prophecies
    Organic Prophecies
    Ryan Young 2002 43 min
    Windmill Point Farm is a 70-acre island of hope in a sea of industrial agribusinesses that poison the surrounding land. Dr. Ken Taylor is an organic farmer with a PhD in chemistry, a degree that gives him unusual authority when assessing the damage we are doing to ourselves and to the environment by buying genetically engineered and pesticide-laden food.

    Organic Prophecies chronicles one man's innovative approaches on a farm in southwestern Quebec. Not only does Ken farm without GMOs, chemical fertilizers and herbicides, he also grows thousands of heirloom nuts, vegetables and fruits, helping to preserve our vital heritage.

    We also meet some of the customers who buy his organic produce--people who depend upon it for healthy food and peace of mind. This film makes prophetic statements about the sorry state of conventional agriculture and the viable alternatives.
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  • Laxwesa Wa - Strength of the River
    Laxwesa Wa - Strength of the River
    Barb Cranmer 1995 54 min
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  • Theater of Life
    Theater of Life
    Peter Svatek 2016 1 h 33 min
    Theater of Life captures the remarkable story of how renowned chef Massimo Bottura, joined by 60 of the world’s top chefs, transformed food destined for the dumpster into delicious and nutritious meals for Italy’s hungriest residents—refugees, recovering addicts, former sex workers, and other disadvantaged people. A visual feast in itself, the film puts a human face on its powerful message of social justice and the environmental impact of food waste.
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