Hello! I wanted to write about the film Fresh in entry #7 to give you guys a brief summary of the film and why you should watch it. In this blog, I wanted to go into further detail after all of you watched "Fresh." After watching this important film, there were many shocking and sad scenes and facts. First of all, the film starts out with George Naylor saying there is nothing that Americans hate or fear more than having inconvenience. That is a statement that really resonated with me, it is very true and sad at the same time. That is the same exact reason most American farmers and consumers don't change their way of living or eating, Americans do love convenience. The film started out talking about crops that were covered with pesticides, the farmer tried limiting it, but still "needed" to use it. This picture shows the process of using GMOs and pesticides on crops. Even the person laying these chemicals down is protected from them, when these are the same chemicals on food for Americans.
As well as other farmers, such as Russ Kremer, he used antibiotics on his pigs, and one day he got stabbed by a boar tusk. Since they were pumped with steroids and antibiotics Russ almost lost his life. When using these drugs the animals build resistance and the strands get much more complicated so it is not only dangerous for consumers, but for the farmers like Russ. The government also helps to keep this problem happening, government subsidizing is when the government gives out big checks to farmers that make soybeans and other crops such as corn to make fructose corn syrup that make junk food. Cheap and fast is more important than ethical and safe or healthy food.
However, it is not always the farmer's fault, they are trying to make a living, but agricultural workplaces are not the best. There is this one company called American Business and they completely take advantage of struggling farmers. For example, Mr. and Mrs. Fox told their story about how they were not gonna make it another year farming and getting the product and the American Bussiness came in and gave them a choice to sign a contract to keep producing crop and meats for seven years and they will get paid based on the number of crops they grow and the weight of the chickens they raise. This company tells them how to take care of the animals, they place animals in their farms to raise and they will get paid when they give everything back to the company, based on weight and numbers. They looked very unhappy, with many zoom-ins on their sad faces because they even said they do not want to do this work, slaughtering animals and keeping them in horrible conditions, but they won't eat if they didn't sign the contract, they would have gone out of business. It very much bothers me and saddens me the greed of the American Business company and how they treat people, taking advantage of them. The food industry in America is a horrible cycle that keeps going. We need to vote with our dollars!
The EC entry was supposed to be about the film Food, Inc., not more about the film Fresh. Not sure where you got this idea from.
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