Valentin Thurn’s newest documentary, 10 BILLION WHAT’S ON YOUR PLATE? discusses how the world will try to feed 10 billion people by 2050. The film was the winner of the Social Justice Award of Documentary at the 2016 Santa Barbara Film Festival.
“We can actually make a difference right now – if we only want to,” says Thurn. Currently, we have enough food to feed 7 million people on Earth, yet, 815 million of the population are food insecure. Thurn’s film calls upon a range of food experts, including organic farmers, agricultural industry speculators, urban gardeners, and commercial slaughterhouse workers to weigh in on the current food crisis. He challenges food professionals to consider how global market reforms can encourage ecologically and economically produced and distributed food for the future.
Throughout the film, Thurn travels the world to explore responsible alternatives to our current methods of food production. Among his destinations are an Indian seed bank touting flood-resistant crops, a corporate run soy farm in Mozambique, and a lab in the Netherlands trying to culture beef without raising livestock.
Thurn travels through the United States, Thailand, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Germany to learn from food industry experts like Dr. Ronald L. Stotish, Executive Director, President, and CEO of AquaBounty; Director of Research of the fertilizer manufacturer Kali + Salz AG, Professor Andreas Gransee, in Philippsthal, Germany; and Kusum Misra, head of Navdanya, a non-profit organization promoting biodiversity conservation, organic farming, the rights of farmers, and the process of seed saving in India. Throughout his journey, Thurn encounters many different ideologies and suggested methods to combat hunger and food insecurity. Thurn’s synthesis of his findings lends to his conclusion that small-scale agriculture and eating locally are the most feasible and sustainable options to feeding the world by 2050.
10 BILLION WHAT’S ON YOUR PLATE? Is available on the following platforms: iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Microsoft, Vudu, Comcast, Charter, Cox, Vimeo, and various other cable operators.
