10 Milliarden - Wie Werden Wir Alle Satt?

Why shoot a documentary on food? Well, I felt it almostas a duty to the public. In all number of debates with spectators after they had seen Taste the Waste, we began by talking about the sell-by dates of products and ended on the subject of world hunger, as if there was an implicit logical connection. It was as if they were asking me to address the subject as a whole, from the idea that something isn’t right with the production system to asking whether there’s any alternative. One senses increasing unease with industrial production methods and, though solutions may be put forward, the question is still played down and sometimes even ridiculed. There’s a general need for more information. My intention was to frame the problem more broadly because I’ve always believed that eating is a political act!

For me the real question is: how can we feed everyone when the land given over to agriculture is diminishing all the time? It’s a gigantic, complex question, especially if you only have 90 minutes to address it. I did so by counterpoising two distinct positions: the first argues in favor of intensive exploitation, the second claims that in this way soil fertility is compromised. My belief is that there are no large-scale solutions but that it’s possible to act globally by eating locally. I was very struck by the story of Fanny, a peasant in Malawi who explained to me how high-tech solutions fail to take into account the multitudes who die of hunger or suffer from malnutrition. Though not immediate, one alternative would be mixed cropping on three levels, which would yield fruits both in years of drought and in years of rainfall. But it’s one of those solutions that fail to ensure a profit for the large multinationals.