1. Troubled Waters: A Mississippi River Story
Farming practices in America's heartland, including excess fertilizers and poor soil conservation, have wrought unintended yet severe consequences on the Mississippi River. Fortunately, farmers, scientists, and citizens are pursuing more sustainable land-use practices that meet ambitious food production goals while ensuring the long-term health of precious natural resources.
2. The Agro Rebel: Permaculture in the Salzburg Alps
Sepp Holzer explains some of the innovative, labour-saving agricultural techniques he applies at his farm in the Eastern Alps of Salzburg, Austria.
3. I'm Just A Layman in Pursuit of Justice: Black Farmers Fight Against USDA
"I’m Just a Layman in Pursuit of Justice" chronicles the injustices of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, also known as ‘the last plantation,’ and the lived experiences of Black farmers who chose to fight against discrimination.
4. Sugar in Their Blood
Mainly through the voice of family patriarch Joe Judice, Sugar in Their Blood follows a family of 7th generation Louisiana sugarcane farmers as they struggle with all of the challenges inherit in staying in business. It's a story of pride and resilience in the face of constantly changing conditions, both in terms of business and climate.
5. Sepp Holzer's Secrets of Eden
Filmmaker Claudia Hefner showcases the Kramerterhof, an Alpine estate which Sepp Holzer has transformed from an ordinary farm into a paragon of permaculture. Spectacular aerial photography helps viewers to appreciate the magnificence of the landscape and the efficiency of the property.
6. Land Rush
A partnership between the Government of Mali and an American agricultural investor may see 200-square kilometers of Malian land transformed into a large-scale sugar cane plantation. Land Rush documents the hopes, fears, wishes, and demands of small-scale subsistence farmers in the region who look to benefit, or lose out, from the deal.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
7. The Wheat Harvest
The rhythms of a typical day during the summer wheat harvest in Kansas.
8. When The Cows Come Home
When the Cows Come Home introduces audiences to Tilly and Maggie, a pair of cows that musician, journalist, artist and cow whisperer, Andrew Johnstone has befriended and subsequently saved from slaughter. The garrulous herdsman is enthusiastic to expound his views on animal husbandry, bovine communication and the vagaries of life in general, before the film walks us back through the events that have shaped the singular farmer-philosopher. From personal family tragedy to warring with Catholic school authorities, innovating in Hamilton’s nascent music scene to creating guerrilla art installations; Johnstone’s life has had a truly idiosyncratic trajectory. Mental health issues may have seen him retreat to life on the farm, but the film makes clear its subject’s restless inquisitiveness is far from being put out to pasture.
9. Over de jaargetijden heen (Over de jaargetijden heen)
(Over de jaargetijden heen)
10. Maya Land: Listening to the Bees (Maya Land: Listening to the Bees)
A story about the environmental conflict between GM soy growers and Maya Beekeepers in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico. It reflects on what the environment and economy could look like if bee health was considered as a criterion of sustainable development. The film explores the pre-colonial and ongoing relationship between Maya people and their environment, in particular the milpa agricultural system , sacred sinkholes , and sacred stingless bees, the Melipona.
11. Bauxita
Brazil is one of the most dangerous countries for environmentalists. The rural community of Belisário holds the country's second largest bauxite reserve, right below one of the most bio-diverse areas in the world: the Atlantic Forest. The small community was shaken when the beloved Gilberto, a Franciscan Friar, received a death threat followed by the lines: "you've been talking against mining way too much". PT: O Brasil é um dos países mais perigosos do mundo para defensores do meio ambiente. Em Minas Gerais, a comunidade rural de Belisário abriga a segunda maior reserva de bauxita do país, em uma das áreas de maior biodiversidade do mundo: a Mata Atlântica. A tranquilidade do pequeno vilarejo foi abalada quando Frei Gilberto, um franciscano que dedica sua vida à preservação da natureza, recebeu uma ameaça de morte com o seguinte aviso: "você tem falado demais contra a mineração".
It has an average vote of 10 on TMDB.
12. Agrarian Utopia (สวรรค์บ้านนา)
Facing seizure of their own lands, two families found themselves farming together on the same field, hoping to get through just another rice-farming season like every year. But no matter how much the world is evolving, how much the country is going through economic, political and social changes, they still cannot grasp that ideology of happiness.
It has an average vote of 6.4 on TMDB.
13. Der kleine Held vom Hamsterfeld (Der kleine Held vom Hamsterfeld)
(Der kleine Held vom Hamsterfeld)
14. Food Fight
A fascinating look at how American agricultural policy and food culture developed in the 20th century, and how the California food movement rebelled against big agribusiness to launch the local organic food movement.
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
15. Shipbuilder
This film recreates the true story of Tom Sukanen, an eccentric Finnish immigrant who homesteaded in Saskatchewan in the 1920s and 1930s. Sukanen spent ten years building and moving overland a huge iron ship that was to carry him back to his native Finland. The ship never reached water.
16. Dominion
Exposing the dark underbelly of modern animal agriculture through drones, hidden & handheld cameras, the feature-length film explores the morality and validity of our dominion over the animal kingdom.
It has an average vote of 8.625 on TMDB.
17. Un jour en Italie (Un jour en Italie)
(Un jour en Italie)
It has an average vote of 8.5 on TMDB.
18. We Who Dwell in the Mountains Cannot Be Blamed for Being There (Wir Bergler in den Bergen sind eigentlich nicht schuld, dass wir da sind)
A documentary about Swiss mountain folk.
It has an average vote of 6.3 on TMDB.
19. Once Upon a Time (He bû tune bû)
Every year, a Kurdish family leaves Gaziantep to work on the land near Ankara. This thankless life of seasonal labor turns upside down when the eldest son falls in love.
20. The Grange Fair: An American Tradition
This Emmy award-winning documentary chronicles a vanishing piece of Americana: the last remaining agricultural encampment fair in the country, and the families who spend months preparing for this unique rural phenomenon.
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.