Future of Food | What Happens Next | Retro Report

How does a small South Dakota farm hold lessons for feeding a crowded and less predictable world? "What Happens Next" is a collaboration with Quartz examining the future of society.

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[TrueFoodTV]

Brilliant storytelling and cinematography. This short film is wonderful on so many levels... reminds me of the many conversations I've had with farmers across America about the desperate need to nurture the soil with care.

[misstracy]

Im pressive . . Kudos to this farmer and his family .thank you

[StacyA-vd]

Why doesn't anyone ever show the tons of edible food being thrown away by corporations, farmers, grocery stores, restaurants? Me not finishing my plate of pasta is just not comparable to the waste something like Mcdonald's produces.

[Troy-olfk]

I feel more grateful for my cherry tomatoes after watching this

[divyanshrai]

This isn't anti-GMO as everyone seems to think after watching the "organic" part. This is more about soil and how it's damaged by insecticides and pesticides.
1. Use GMO, they are good.
2. Don't use insecticides and pesticides they are harmful to soil and the runoffs from the soil into the ground might mess up the underground water too.

The points made in the video -
1. Natural(Organic) compost tends to soak up more rain, stay moist through dry spells
2. Mono-culture agriculture is bad and vulnerable to climate change(yes it's real) and pests(actually, using GMO helps you get around the problem of pests but whatever)
3. Small organic farms, are only one small part of the solution.
4. People are suckers for organic high priced foods, that's what Will capitalized on and will continue to do so.


Points not made in the video-
1. GMOs are bad blah blah blah. No, they never said GMOs are bad or harm the soil.
2. Non organic foods are bad blah blah. No, they aren't bad for you. They are however bad for the soil(because of the pesticides, not the GMOs), that's what the video says.

[SupaSupaKewl]

This short film is completely one sided when it comes to presenting the discussion on organic vs conventional. There is no coverage on the benefits of conventional farming and only covers the benefits of organic farming, without considering disadvantages. The farmer featured in the film himself admits it was a economic choice to switch to organic rather than deciding which was better in terms of food productivity. Organic production is usually much less productive compared to conventional farming, requiring more much more land and labour. I highly highly doubt the future of food will adopt less efficient farming methods to feed the 2 billion more people the planet is project to accommodate. It seems almost idiotic to presume that a less efficient farming practices will be the future of food. It seems even more idiotic to abandon 50+ years of agricultural science and progress in the name of organic farming and then to call it the future of food. There are valid points regarding soil degradation, but managing that does not mean we need to abandon 50+ years of science and progress and proclaiming organic methods are the future, and neither is adding more manure and compost a technique exclusive to organic farming. I'm sure that the best solution will be a mix of new and old methods, like it's always been. The only reason organic is viable is because there are poorly informed people rich enough and willing enough to pay for more food that they've been told is better for them when it isn't any better than conventional. I doubt the next 2 billion people will be anywhere near rich enough to buy the organic products the rich and entitled upper middle class American and Europeans enjoy.

There are many effective ways of increasing food productivity and creating more sustainable farms mentioned in the film that are NOT limited to organic farms. This includes running smaller farms and increasing crop diversity instead of relying on larger monocultures. Smaller farms are always more productive than large ones because they're easier to manage and have more people working the land more intensely, making it more productive. Farms in America however, are huge, averaging more than 400 acres, almost four times bigger than an average English farm of about 100 acres. Many farmers choose to farm monocultures because they're much easier to manage on such large plots of land and require fewer hands. For farms to shrink and improve crop diversity it will require a huge amount of new farmers, if we want farms as small as English ones there needs to be at least another 3-6 million farmers, more than doubling the number of farmers in America today form about 3 million people. The most efficient and productive farms are probably even smaller at about 20 acres, so more than 20 million people in America would need to become farmers to accommodate farms this size, an increase of six-fold. If all farms were this small it might be practical to consider organic methods for everyone, but the best methods will always embrace new technology and progress in agricultural science, not dismiss it as this documentary does by idiotically proclaiming organic is the future. I doubt there is anywhere near enough young people willing to become farmers anyways.

It's really a shame that this film was just an echo chamber for the well-off upper middle class Americans and Europeans, the only people able to afford organic food. For any food to be considered the future, it should not require a significant price premium that limits it's availability to the rich. The real future of food seems to be in that tiny short segment covering greenhouses and indoor farming, where conditions are completely in our control and can be moved to cities. It's too bad you decided that wasn't worth more than 30 seconds of coverage.

[Benstyping]

Okay, not watched this yet, I'm predicting the word count of the word veganism to be: 2.