Food and Country

NOW ON VOD! Filmmaker Laura Gabbert has stated that her documentary Food and Country was difficult to make. This is because the state of the U.S. food system, food distribution, and demand/supply is in such decline and bad condition that it will take an enormous shift in government thinking to correct it. Gabbert exposes our country’s broken food system and the ramifications of decisions from decades ago that today have resulted in numerous health problems at a time of urgency and need. However, there are solutions, and the human condition can be salvaged if we genuinely believe. Enter Ruth Reichl.

The New York Times food critic, Gourmet Magazine editor, best-selling memoirist, and woman who has been instrumental in shaping American food culture reaches out with great concern to an array of small farmers, ranchers, chefs, and independently-owned restaurants to understand and learn how they existed as the pandemic placed our world in lockdown. The results of countless Zoom calls and conversations exposed how our nation’s food supply and system were falling apart and unable to exist. As prices soared, products vanished, and workers could not hold onto their jobs, Reichl checks in on people who share their experiences and fears about how they survived.

“…the U.S. food system, food distribution, and demand/supply is in such decline and bad condition that it will take an enormous shift in government thinking to correct…”

Through filmed Zoom calls, many trips throughout the U.S., and a great deal of archival research and discovery, Food and Country offers an education for a better food future than what currently exists. There’s innovation and hope for clearing a path toward change, which many men, women, and families who take part in the film have set out to do. “How we grow and make our food shows us our values — as a nation and as human beings,” says Reichl.

Georgia rancher Will Harris turned his family’s industrial operation into a regenerative farm. This future thinking and innovative ideas have made Harris a pillar of his community and beyond. Former commercial fisherman Bren Smith was looking for “ecological redemption” when he became a restorative ocean farmer. His kelp farm in Long Island Sound sells plant-based food, compostable bioplastics, and fertilizer for regenerative land-based farms. Farmer and activist Karen Washington farms land in the South Bronx and upstate New York to provide fresh produce. She also educates her community about the value of healthy, sustainable food.

Nebraska farmer Angela Knuth transitioned her family corn and bean farm to “no-till, organic.” Restaurateurs, including Vietnamese-American chef-owner of an award-winning Los Angeles restaurant, Porridge + Puffs, Minh Phan, and James Beard Award-winning Bay Area chef and one-time labor organizer Reem Assil, go through the motions to keep their businesses going from changing locations to and creating a worker-owned collective.