Robert Kenner: Big Food will do everything to stop you talking about this

http://www.theecologist.org/Intervie...bout_this.html

Robert Kenner: Big Food will do everything to stop you talking about this

Laura Sevier
9th February, 2010
Filmmaker Robert Kenner's documentary Food Inc has shocked audiences across
the US with its stark portrayal of industrial agriculture. And that's just
the bits the lawyers let you see...


This is not a film about food: it's a film about rights

Laura Sevier: What inspired you to make the film about the food industry?

Robert Kenner: I had read Eric Schlosser's book Fast Food Nation and Michael
Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma. I realised I knew so little about where food
comes from and how much our food systems had been changed.

The illusion is that food comes from a farm with a white picket fence and
barns but it's not. It's from huge mega factories where tens of thousands of
animals are confined in one space. Waste used to be fertiliser - now it's a
pollutant. The pieces of the system no longer make sense.


LS: Did you set out to listen to all sides of the story - from organic
farmers to Monsanto?


RK: I thought it would be interesting to talk to everyone - food companies,
industrial and organic farmers and have a conversation about how we can feed
the world.

Little did I know how off-limits the food world would become and how much
industry does not want you talking about this subject. I went from one
company to the other - in the film you only see ten or so but actually there
were dozens that did not want to talk to us.

I realised the system was off limits. Ultimately in the US food products
have started to have more rights than we as individuals. There are laws in
place to protect companies - known as 'veggie libel' laws - that stop you
from insulting a product or endangering profits of a corporation. [Food
libel laws or food disparagement laws exist in 13 US states]

LS: Can you tell me about the legal challenges you faced with this film?


RK: The irony is that it's more frightening to talk about it here than in
the States. I didn't realise what we faced until we talked to Barbara
Kowalcyck, a food safety advocate whose son died having contracted E-coli
from a tainted hamburger. She mentioned what happened to Oprah Winfrey who,
on a program about BSE in 1996, expressed concern about the safety of eating
hamburgers. [Texas ranchers sued Winfrey under a food libel law, although in
1998 the jurors rejected the $11 million dollar defamation lawsuit.]

I ended up spending more legal fees on this film than the past 15 films
combined - times three! The world of corporate food is a very litigious
world. They will do everything to stop you from getting people to think
about this subject. It made my life very frightening. If I'd known all this
before I started out, I might have had second thoughts about making this
film.


We went through the film and thoroughly fact-checked every single statement.

I took things out of Food Inc that I thought were true but [over which] I
didn't want to spend time in court.

LS: Did legal opposition from various companies force you to edit out parts
of the film?


RK: No-one forced me to but there was always the inherent threat. In our
attempt to reach companies we'd call and say, 'We're talking about so and
so. Don't you want to comment?'

With Carole Morison, the chicken farmer who worked for Perdue Farms - she
said she's immune to antibiotics and that she had been feeding her chickens
a feed additive made from arsenic (as requested by Perdue).
We spoke to Perdue who said: 'we stopped doing that [arsenic] a day or two
ago so Carole is incorrect.' They defended the practice in the recent past!
I took out that bit from the film to err on the side of caution.

LS: What was the most shocking aspect of making the film?


RK: There were two things. One was early on when we went to a hearing about
whether to label cloned meat. A representative from the meat industry said
it would be 'too confusing for the consumer'. I realised I had entered an
Orwellian world where people are being 'protected' by not being told.


Then when I asked food safety advocate Barbara Kowalcyck what food she eats
and she couldn't answer me or she'd be sued. I realised it was not a film
about food: it was a film about rights. Seeing how food products now have
more rights than individuals - that was more frightening than seeing how the
food was produced.

LS: In the film there is a focus on the food system in the US - does the
situation apply to the rest of the world?

RK: This is not a film about the US. I thought of filming in other countries
and you could have been told the exact same story. It might have started in
the US, but it is spreading. It's starting to happen here and it happens in
Asia.


LS: How was Food Inc received in the US when it was released last year in
June?

RK: It became one of the most successful documentaries of all time. The
amount of press we got was really incredible. For a while we were the number
one selling DVD on Amazon ahead of all the Hollywood movies.


It's very gratifying to see how much it played into growing food movements
and how passionate people are and how it cuts across ideological lines.
There is something about food that does cut across ideological lines - we
all have to eat!

LS: In the film you tell people to 'vote with their fork'. Is consumer power
enough to change this system? Obviously it's a matter for the regulatory
agencies too but as Food Inc reveals, the FDA and USDA are somewhat
toothless...

RK: It's a two-pronged battle. Consumers do have the power to vote three
times a day. But you've also got to create a level playing field.
Unfortunately if you're subsidising food that's not good for us it means
that poor people are having to buy cheaper calories and these cheaper
calories are making us sick. It also takes consumer consciousness to
infringe this group. It's never going to change unless we have a movement to
help us change it.

As a common movement gains strength it's able to put pressure on governments
all over the world. Entrenched corporate power is only concerned with the
very short term, in looking after its own bottom line. You can still make
money selling healthy food too. We need to know how to put pressure on and
pay the real costs of food. We all love cheap food - but we're beginning to
see the hidden cost of it.

LS: What do you hope people will take away from the film?

RK: That the system is unsustainable. We've created a world where we're
using up our natural resources and, in doing so, robbing our children and
our grandchildren. We have to think about growing and producing food in a
fairer way.


We have to return the balance of power towards individuals and away from the
corporations. The film does show Walmart in a good light for helping to ban
a growth hormone given to cattle to produce more milk.

We also need to figure out how to create another system. The current food
system is all based on oil. If you believe in peak oil we're going to run
out at some point. We need to think about how to feed the world and what's
sustainable. People should have the right to know the consequences and the
cost of the industrial food system.




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Food Inc will be released in UK cinemas on Friday 12th February, with a
special day of nationwide one-off screenings on Monday 15th February. For
details visit www.foodincmovie.co.uk
Laura Sevier is the Ecologist's Green Living Editor