Coincidentally coming in the year that marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of The Soil Association, Robert Golden’s provocative documentary This Good Earth is set to shake the foundations of our trust in the safety of much of modern farming.
The 92-minute film from the award-winning director reveals how we face environmental disaster unless all ploughing is stopped and how only organic farming can now safely feed the world.
The film, beautifully shot in Golden’s home county of Dorset and two years in the making, brings together farmers, scientists, ecologists and expert academics to contest the disturbing influence that agrochemical giants exert over the farming industry and warns that the way we currently grow our food could effectively kill us unless huge changes are made in how we treat our land and other species.
At a time when a 2020 YouGov survey revealed that 3 in 10 Brits prefer to give their families organic natural food and vast international movements are swelling fears of how non-organic farming contributes to global warming, This Good Earth discloses that almost half (47%) of British farmers do not believe that they must take actions to reduce greenhouse gases.
And as corporate farming is driven by the rapacious desire for increasing profits, human rights lawyer Richard Harvey warns in the film that this at the expense of the planet could yet lead to criminal prosecutions.
“It’s a question of international crime, the International Criminal Court makes it a crime against humanity to destroy the environment,” says Harvey.
As a new and updated re-sounding of The Soil Association’s original alarm at its founding in 1946, “that there is a direct connection between farming practice and plant, animal, human and environmental health”, This Good Earth is essential viewing for farmers, consumers, ecologists and those concerned with human rights, as well as providing a key study tool for schools, universities and all of those who share the deep concerns of how and what we feed ourselves. The documentary – which features expert analysis and forecasts from Professor Tim Lang, the UK’s foremost expert on food security, and Liz Bowles, Associate Director of The Soil Association, alongside Professors Jules Pretty and Erik Millstone revealing the stark and unsettling truth about the links between food corporations, people’s diets and debilitating illnesses – will be released on January 21st 2021 and premiered in Bridport, Dorset, and will be available for streaming from the film’s website https://this-good-earth.com
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