Share & Voice: Robert Kenner, Director of Food, Inc. visits UMD

Robert Kenner, the director of the 2008 documentary Food, Inc. spoke at UMD October 20th.  I may be a little biased but this was a great event!  Robert talked about various aspects of our food touching on topics like GMOs, cloned meat, how our food has become controlled and become more corporate, updates on some of the people in Food, Inc, what we might do to help, and more.

One of the stories he told that I found fantastic was of the woman in the movie who was "mass producing" chickens for a large company. There were chickens crammed into a house, their legs couldn't carry them because of the hormone induced rapid body growth and dead chickens lying around that the farmer had to go in and pull out. She was very open in the film because she was struggling with the way the corporation was forcing farmers to produce.  The women lost her contract because of the fact that she was in Food, Inc. sharing her story.  She is now raising free range, well taken care of chickens. Robert said that when he interviewed her the first time the chickens were walking around in a days, scared of people and he said it was really icky.  This time when he interviewed her 3 days before his talk at UMD, he said that the chickens were lively and interested in what was going on. He had one in his lap, one on each food and others running around him. The farmer is also much happier as well.

I was one of the major planners of this event.  We had many hopes and goals with this, but one of mine was to bring many people together around this issue. I was hoping to introduces people who were not so familiar to the information. I also wanted to help bring awareness to groups in the community that are doing things that align with the message around Food, Inc. We had groups tabling outside the gym and put together a program booklet of resources in the area where people can eat, shop, grow their own food, volunteer or support in other ways.   (I have many extra if anyone would like one!)

Robert Kenner and I at the UMD farm

We had a really great turn out. I sincerely hope that we have inspired a few people to make some changes, taught them something new about what is going on with our food or found a way to support the effort to better, safer, less incorporated food.