CHENNAI: Food is a universal language — it is a global unifier, says Sekani Nash, an organic farmer of the Field to Fork Community Farm, in an incisive documentary titled “Feeding Tomorrow.” Directed by brothers Oliver and Simon English, the nearly two-hour documentary talks about how food is about more than keeping the body alive. It plays a great role in society — spiritual, cultural, religious. emotional and economic.
The documentary goes to explain how food influences our personal lives as well as our society. More importantly, food has a direct bearing on our health and well-being and it is in light of this that the documentary explores the grim prospect of international food shortages.
In 2015, the United Nations said that we have 60 years of harvest left at the current rate of soil erosion. Top soil is getting depleted faster than the new production of top soil. With agriculture in many parts of the world completely industrialised, this kind of soil erosion becomes inevitable.
Several experts — such as Mark Shepard, farmer and founder of New Forest Farm; Selima Hauber, owner and organic farmer of Field to Fork Community Farm; and Shenggen Fan, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute — have chipped in with their invaluable observations in this documentary. One thing is crystal clear: Man is callous about food.
In this context, Oliver shares: “I grew up in the restaurant business, studied hospitality at Cornell, and worked as a restaurant developer and operator for many chefs and hospitality companies around the world for years. Despite my background in the world of food, while opening a restaurant in Abu Dhabi, I realised that I had never really asked the question, 'Where does our food come from?' or thought it might have a bigger impact on the world around us.”
Captivatingly photographed, beautifully scored and smartly edited, the work is a feast for the eyes and offers healthy provocation for the mind. The experts offer in-depth suggestions to radically change the way we cultivate our land. Included in these is the need to implement regenerative agriculture, while a teacher tells her students about the importance of food awareness and a nutritionist helps patients by changing hospital menu practices.
“Feeding Tomorrow,” now available on Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video, among other platforms, has great relevance to our world today.
