Cleveland Film Festival, "Poly Cultures: Food Where we Live"

In POLY CULTURES, local filmmaker Tom Kondilas describes the thriving effort in Northeast Ohio to bring back small scale, sustainable organic farming. In contemporary society, which is based on industrialized agriculture, food is typically moved 1,500-1,800 miles from place of growth to place of consumption. This results in the use of a huge amount of hydrocarbon fuels, not to mention a reliance on often harmful growing technologies. Advocates of a return to ecological agriculture who give testimonials in the film include the proprietors of the George Jones Memorial Farm, a 70 acre sustainable farm owned by Oberlin College and operated privately by a group of alumni. Then there’s City Fresh, a joint initiative that works to bring local produce to underserved areas in Cleveland and Lorain. Harold Hartzler, a dairy farmer from Wooster, describes how his use of pesticides beginning in the 1950s eventually made his animals sick and the earth unusable, until he reverted to natural methods. Proprietors of the Pint Size Farm at Hale Farm in Bath describe how they grow exclusively for the Great Lakes Brewery. POLY CULTURES is a testimony to the imagination of local innovators who are dedicated to revitalizing a sustainable model of commerce. – B.B.
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