The New Green Giants

The New Green Giants effectively squashes the myth that all organic farms are small operations run by earnest proto-hippies, illustrating instead how a movement has mushroomed into an industry, with many favorite brands now being produced on the farms and in the factories of huge agribusiness conglomerates. Dallas-based Dean Foods, for instance, handles brands including Silk, Alta Dena, Borden, and the one-time farmers' cooperatives Horizon and Land O'Lakes. Filmmaker Ted Remerowski makes clear that this consolidation is not necessarily a bad thing; in fact, it's occurring in part because consumers are demanding more of these products. But the game has changed over recent decades, with China now becoming a major source of produce (which raises a separate set of issues). Representing a different side of the story is Eden Foods, a company that has elected to stay small, packaging its products in a Detroit facility using U.S. workers, despite the greater cost. The documentary explores the connection between farm size and production, showing how it is possible to run a large, efficient operation without artificial fertilizer or pesticides (one farmer who switched from conventional to organic claims that his enterprise is more productive now). Defining what “organic” actually means (it has nothing to do with “natural” in an industrial context), this thought-provoking film takes a close look at the new organic food producers and asks whether they are living up to their claims. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Gardner)