THE FUTURE OF FOOD offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled grocery store shelves for the past decade. Mostly coming from Monsanto.
The film voices opinions of farmers in disagreement with the food industry, and details the impacts on their lives and livelihoods from this new technology, and the market and political forces that are changing what people eat. The farmers state that they are held legally responsible for their crops being invaded by “company-owned” genes. The film generally opposes the patenting of living organisms, and describes the disappearance of traditional cultural practices.
About 3 years back I wrote a blog about a new world in our hearts, a vision of a sustainable future which many around the world including myself has woken up to. I awoke to the illusion on front of me. To see the pit trap that is the government and the systems that have shackled us.
There has to be a change in the way we see the world. Here is a great documentary speaking about the vision we share.
About the film
A feature-length documentary directed by Jordan Osmond and Samuel Alexander, A Simpler Way: Crisis as Opportunity takes us to Gippsland, Australia, where residents have fully embraced the notion of a simpler existence far from the maddening crowds and stress-inducing cityscapes. Part of a 12-month experiment known as The Simpler Way Project, the inhabitants of this community all share a common commitment to social change and environmental preservation.
What does it mean to live simply? For this diverse group of conscientious citizens, it means that you reconnect to the natural world, conserve your resources, and peel back the extravagances, economic shackles and unsustainable definitions of success in the modern industrialized world. In their tiny homes hand-crafted from largely recycled materials, they seek the purity that comes from a return to the basics.
A Simpler Way: Crisis as Opportunity follows each step of this fascinating year-long journey, and it’s clear that every challenge faced by this close-knit community has opened a door to revelation. Upon the completion of this project, each of them will take these lessons of simple living back home with them and create a lasting change that reverberates to others.
DIRT The Movie–narrated by Jamie Lee Curtis–brings to life the environmental, economic, social and political impact that the soil has. It shares the stories of experts from all over the world who study and are able to harness the beauty and power of a respectful and mutually beneficial relationship with soil.
But more than the film and the lessons that it teaches, is a call to action. “When humans arrived 2 million years ago, everything changed for dirt. And from that moment on, the fate of dirt and humans has been intimately linked.”
How can you affect that relationship for the better?
We are often led to believe we need the bigger home as we seek status as we seek to be in competition with one another. I think tiny homes can be efficient.
TV producer and Internet-video personality Kirsten Dirksen invites us on her journey into the tiny homes of people searching for simplicity, self-sufficiency, minimalism and happiness by creating shelter in caves, converted garages, trailers, tool sheds, river boats and former pigeon coops.
Ideas: Local Vegetable Waste Pickup For Composting Initiative Puerto Rico T the initiative is simple. We are sending vegetable waste off to the landfill when …
Here is a video from the 1940’s entitled Democracy at Work in Rural Puerto Rico about agriculture in Puerto Rico, This 40s film, made by the U.S. Department of Agricultures Extension Service, chronicles the services the Extension Service provides to rural Puerto Rican families, including training in better farming methods, help with starting home-based businesses, and starting 4-H clubs for the kids.
According to an editorial review on Amazon,
“Democracy at work in Rural Puerto Rico, is a propaganda piece to teach the world what democracy offers for places like Puerto Rico and how much they and the United States have gained from the alliance. When it is not reminding the audience how wondrous democracy can be, the film shows some compelling statistics and customs of Puerto Rico, including a traditional country dance complete with music and smiling Puerto Ricans. Made when tensions were reaching a boiling point with Europe in the 1940s, the narrator also claims Puerto Rico has strategic importance in fending off enemies. This is an informative, albeit slanted, look into the culture and customs of Puerto Rico.”
It’s a flash from the past and a look back at how agriculture was a big part of Puerto Rico, where everyone grew food, where as now they are dependent on imported foods and dependent on food stamps and welfare.
Massive amounts of rich land goes unused as the people have forgotten about the foundation this island was built upon. Before they had their farmers market, now those are replace with mass amounts of fast food joints as the people forgot about real food.
I truly believe the richness is in the land, but like then, people would prefer for an outside company to buy off all the land, in order for them to work for a pittance for that company. Just like the sugar cane industry that presided here during those times.
I mention on another one of my blog post that cannabis hemp could be the new sugarcane, but again people have to regain control of the land and rebuild the foundations. Stop waiting on governments and corporations to lay the foundation out for you. The power is in your hands.
The people of this island have to start to grow food and the people need to start working together as they did back then. Start producing again to regain their own dependence and it all starts with agriculture.
Back then these life skills were passed down from generation to generation. Now nothing much is being passed down but the skill to be dependent on governments and corporations.
Instead of investing in Iphones, maybe the people should be investing in gardening tools. I made a challenge which could be found here entitled donate land in exchange for food. I stated that there were many people, especially those who study agriculture, who wants to grow with no land and people with lots of land but not growing.
I think we must share the land so that we could share the food. Time to stop being dependent on corporations and governments and start depending on each other. In solidarity. UNITY!
I wrote a blog on my vision on a sustainable future which can be seen by clicking here. I think we need to change the way we look at shelter as all we see is the big house with the white picket fences and the giant swimming pool. Living in debt all our lives, paying off our giant homes.
Using materials that leave a negative impact on our environment. So many viable options, as I wrote in that post I mentioned before. From cob to hempcrete.
So many options, but we limit those options by the limits of our creativity. Here is a documentary on earthen homes which I enjoyed very much. Hopefully it can open your eyes and inspire others into seeing a new way of living.
FIRST EARTH is a documentary about the movement towards a massive paradigm shift for shelter — building healthy houses in the old ways, out of the very earth itself, and living together like in the old days, by recreating villages. It is a sprawling film, shot on location from the West Coast to West Africa. An audiovisual manifesto filmed over the course of 4 years and 4 continents, FIRST EARTH makes the case that earthen homes are the healthiest housing in the world; and that since it still takes a village to raise a healthy child, it is incumbent upon us to transform our suburban sprawl into eco-villages, a new North American dream.
It is a sprawling film, shot on location from the West Coast to West Africa. An audiovisual manifesto filmed over the course of 4 years and 4 continents, First Earth makes the case that earthen homes are the healthiest housing in the world; and that since it still takes a village to raise a healthy child, it is incumbent upon us to transform our suburban sprawl into eco-villages, a new North American dream.
First Earth is not a how-to film; rather, it’s a why-to film. It establishes the appropriateness of earthen building in every cultural context, under all socio-economic conditions, from third-world communities to first-world countrysides, from Arabian deserts to American urban jungles.
In the age of environmental and economic collapse, peak oil and other converging emergencies, the solution to many of our ills might just be getting back to basics, focusing on food, clothes, and shelter. We need to think differently about house and home, for material and for spiritual reasons, both the personal and the political.
It establishes the appropriateness of earthen building in every cultural context, under all socio-economic conditions, from third-world communities to first-world countrysides, from Arabian deserts to American urban jungles.
In the age of environmental and economic collapse, peak oil and other converging emergencies, the solution to many of our ills might just be getting back to basics, focusing on food, clothes, and shelter. We need to think differently about house and home, for material and for spiritual reasons, both the personal and the political.
