The Story of Food

Inspired by The Story of Stuff, USC Canada has produced a short and simple educational video to raise awareness about threats to the global food supply:

USC Canada is a non-governmental organization that promotes vibrant family farms, strong rural communities, and healthy ecosystems around the world. With outreach in the Americas, Asia and Africa, they work with local farmers to ensure a secure source of food and livelihood for communities and promote crop diversity.

Clocking in at just under six minutes, the modest-budget video manages to touch on issues of biodiversity, soil depletion, factory farming, ethanol, locavorism, organic agriculture… **gasps for air** ...climate change, nutrition, obesity, hunger, GMOs, Fair Trade, and the history of agriculture — finally signing off with the promise, “together, we can build a healthier food system for everyone”.

The program they pitch is called “Seeds of Survival” (SOS) and is based on four key assumptions:

  * Farmers are knowledgeable producers who, for a host of reasons, are finding it hard to maintain the diversity and innovation at the heart of their food security.
  * Traditional local crop varieties are affordable, often nutritionally superior, and better adapted to challenging growing conditions than varieties not native to a region.
  * Farmers are local experts and play as important a role in enhancing productivity as agricultural scientists.
  * Conservation through use and plant selection is vital to the survival of our planet’s biodiversity.

Wherever you live, every bite you take has an impact on the entire world. So it might be worth taking a few minutes to chew on this message.