By Adam Rabiner
In this time of false narratives and misinformation, it is something of a balm to find a movie with a straightforward title, Sustainable, which is exactly as it says it is: a documentary that explores in all its nuances precisely what this word means in the context of the food system. The film does this, in part, by answering the major questions that news reporters ask when reporting a story: who, what, where, when, how, and why? Beyond answering many of these basic questions with short stories and explanations, the film follows one major narrative: a year in the life of Spence Farm outside of Chicago.
Summer is an explosion of green, sunlight, long days, short nights, intensity and bounty.
The farm, founded in 1830, is now run by Marty Travis, a seventh-generation farmer; his son, Will; and his wife, Kris. Marty narrates the film and describes the feel of each season: Spring is a time of energy flows and rebirth marked by baby plants emerging from the soil and tree buds sprouting from branches. Summer is an explosion of green, sunlight, long days, short nights, intensity and bounty. Fall forecasts the end is near and that the game is over once the ground freezes; it is also a time of abundance. In winter, the main imperatives are keeping warm and ensuring the animals are well fed.
To Marty, the main characteristic of sustainability is the relationships he cultivates and the connections he makes. There are many. Most immediately, he’s blessed to work closely with Kris and Will on the farm. Extending from there, he delivers his food to over 30 Chicago restaurants. He considers the chefs to be his friends. To him, it is about “more than rutabagas, more than selling.”
Marty also organized a farming cooperative with his neighbors, Stewards of the Land, to plan and sell their products through a single collective channel. Deemed a “visionary leader” by some, he invites his chef friends to his farm for teachable moments. He is an avid student of those he can learn from, such as his friend Greg Wade, a young and talented commercial bread maker, or Gary Reding, a consultant with Advancing Eco Agriculture, a company focused on promoting proper and balanced plant nutrition and soil health.
These “alternative,” or non-conventional, agricultural practices and beliefs are a hallmark of sustainability. Reding explains that plants have immune systems, just like animals, and those with strong systems can better resist pests, which target the weaker and compromised plants. But, according to John Kempf, a self-taught Amish farmer and the founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture, before we can have sustainable agriculture, which requires healthy soil, we need to have regenerative agriculture, as too much of the land is too damaged.
Marty says that he hopes to have Spence Farm continue to flourish, not for seven future generations, but for 70.
Just as plants, like humans, have immune systems, they also have relationships, including with molecules in the air and chemicals and microbes buried at their roots in the soil. In an animated segment, the film presents carbon sequestration clearly and straightforwardly. Plants take carbon dioxide from the air into their leaves and turn it into a sugary liquid, which they exude into the soil, where it feeds microorganisms.
If the soil is not destroyed by tillage or chemicals, the carbon becomes part of the microorganisms’ molecular structure, potentially for generations. This long-term thinking and perspective is a hallmark of sustainability. Marty says that he hopes to have Spence Farm continue to flourish not for seven future generations but for 70.
If, for Marty, the hallmark of “sustainable farming” is his various relationships, the movie fleshes out the phrase in all its complexity and meanings. Other notable words and concepts the film covers include local, seasonal, small-scale, healthy, organic no-till, traditional, non-conventional, community-oriented, regenerative, fruits and vegetables vs. commodity-based, diversity vs. uniformity and monocrops, cover crops, chemical-free, nitrogen fixation, natural, externalities, soil health, moisture retention, variety, seed preservation, compost, subsidies, scalability, yield vs. quality, culture, way of life, efficiency, ethics, seed preservation, genetic diversity, nutrition, carbon sequestration, resiliency and quality of life.
Perhaps the word sustainable gains meaning through time spent selecting fruits and vegetables in the produce aisle of the Park Slope Food Coop or chatting with a seller at the Grand Army Plaza farmers’ market. The word is variegated, but the film Sustainable is a good place to contemplate what the word truly means to you.
Sustainable July 9, 2024 @ 7 p.m.
Screening link: http://www.plowtoplatefilms.com/events/
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