The Global Banquet: Politics of Food
Maryknoll World Productions,
a documentary by Old Dog Productions, 2001
The Global Banquet: Politics of Food Maryknoll World Productions, a documentary by Old Dog Productions, 2001 |
The globalized food system as it exists today is incredibly complex, yet the documentary video "The Global Banquet: Politics of Food" tells the story with unusual clarity, insight and faith, which makes it congregation-friendly. While this is not an overtly religious film, it is sacramental in its meaning and intent because it helps us to remember that food is sacred. The film concludes with a quote from Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (1941). It appears on the screen long enough to emphasize one of the film's principal messages: "We can have democracy in this country or we can have great concentrated wealth in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both." The film extends the meaning of what Brandeis said to the realm of global agribusiness, so viewers will reflect deeply, prayerfully, on how dangerous the precarious state of our contemporary food system really is. The filmmakers want us to understand the scale on which the struggle for democracy has been overshadowed by unimaginable concentrated wealth along with its political, economic, ethic, spiritual and ecological consequences.
"The Global Banquet" is divided into two parts, each about 25 minutes long. The first part addresses the question, "Who's Invited?" A farmer from North Dakota who inherited his land -- and love for the soil -- from his father tells of his efforts to preserve the ecological integrity of the land and to grow healthy crops through organic farming methods. Testifying to the tragedy of high suicide rates among many small farmers throughout the country, he says the problem cannot be traced to honest competition, locally or internationally. Instead, the cause lies squarely on governmental and global-trading agreements that, in effect, force small farmers, who are regularly blamed for using "traditional" farming methods that do not keep pace with so-called "advances" in biogenetic science, to join the agribusiness monopoly. In other words, "get big or get out."
The second part of "The Global Banquet" addresses the question, "What's on the menu?" and explores the impact of global agribusiness. For example, the free-trade global food system is designed to ensure that local food self-sufficiency will become subordinate to a system in which people will have to buy foreign exports. But where will they get the money to buy food? Perhaps by moving off their farms to work in maquiladoras owned by garment conglomerates or as migrant workers in fields controlled by Cargill or Monsanto!
Or consider the example of the patenting and control of biogenetically engineered seeds, which is replacing traditional ecological knowledge and the practice of saving the right kinds of seeds by local farmers. They are the people who best know the soil and the characteristics of their ecosystems. The fact of "owning" seeds is troublesome enough, but taking stewardship of the land out of the hands of farmers and placing it, in effect, in the hands of Wall Street is bizarre by any ecological standard. It's a disaster in the making.
In 1992 environmentalist William Greider wrote a book entitled, Who Will Tell The People? "The Global Banquet" takes a very positive step in precisely that direction.
The Rev. Canon Jeff Golliher, Ph.D, works in the Office of the Anglican Observer to the United Nations and is Canon for Environmental Justice and Community Development at New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine.