The Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association is kicking off its 2024 Film Series on food policy with a free screening of the 2014 movie ‘Food Chains’ by director Sanjay Rawal Sunday, January 14 at the Neon in Dayton.
Narrated by Forest Witaker, the film follows migrant farmworkers in Immokalee, Florida as they form a coalition to raise awareness and improve their conditions.
The workers stage a week-long hunger strike to pressure Florida-based grocer Publix, to pay them one penny more per pound of tomato to lift the workers, and their families, out of poverty.
The film looks at the hands that pick our food and highlights the human costs of our food chain which include abusive working conditions that can leave immigrant workers vulnerable to forced labor conditions, while working long hours to harvest the food that fills the grocery store aisles in U.S. supermarkets.
Also in the film are leaders and activists in the fight for food sovereignty, like Eric Scholsser, author of Fast Food Nation, who states in the movie that “most people have no idea that they are connected to this system everytime they buy fresh fruits and vegetables.”
The OEFFA started in the late 70's as a grassroots effort to build a sustainable agriculture movement in Ohio to cultivate a future in which sustainable and organic farmers thrive.
Lauren Hirtle is a grassroots policy organizer at OEFFA.
“With this series this is an opportunity for people to join us and explore the many facets, the good, the bad, and the ugly, of our food and farming system and give people the opportunity to hear the stories of those most intimately connected to our movement’s problems and solutions,” Hirtle said.
The series offers an opportunity for the public to watch a movie together and then share personal stories afterwards and discuss real life solutions to the challenges around food and farming that we face globally, but also locally.
Hirtle said that the movies in this series were chosen as a way to enter into these hard and sometimes intimidating conversations via documentary film screenings and dip your toe into the world of food and farm policy.
“And the intent of a lot of these movies is to get us informed and ignite, right, and get us interested in making a difference and getting involved,” Hirtle said.
Hirtle say’s OEFFA’s policy program picks up where the movies leave off, by providing pathways to become more actively engaged in the sustainable food movement.
The next film in the series is “Diggin In“ which will be shown February 16th at OEFFA’s annual conference in Newark, followed by “Seed, The Untold Story” Sunday March 24th, at the Athena Theatre in Athens, and wrapping up with “The Ants and the Grasshopper”Sunday April 21, at Studio 35 in Columbus.
A panel discussion led by local farmers and food activists will follow the screenings. The events are free and open to the public.
For more information go to OEFFA Policy Film Screening Series - OEFFA Policy.
