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Last night, I attended the screening of Fresh The Movie at Tribecca Cinemas. After the screening there was socializing, good food and beverage, and an excellent Q&A with panelists ana Sofia Joanes of FRESH, Jacquie Berger of Just Food, Sarita Daftary of East New York Farms, Kara Rubin of Whole Foods Market and moderator Patrick Martins, of Heritage Radio Network and founder of Slow Food USA.

FRESH celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system. Among several main characters, FRESH features urban farmer and activist, Will Allen, the recipient of MacArthur's 2008 Genius Award; sustainable farmer and entrepreneur, Joel Salatin, made famous by Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma; and supermarket owner, David Ball, challenging our Wal-Mart dominated economy.

Some of the things that I took from the movie and that struck me most are:

• The contrast between the aliveness, fulfillment, and passion of farmers like Joel Salatin and Will Allan that are at the forefront of sustainable farming with the morose “conventional farmers” in the film that seem trapped in conventional farming by the heavy-handed business and contractual practices of large food corporations, debt, and status quo.

• How much happier chickens, pigs, cows, etc that live on sustainable farms are versus the sad state of those are “manufactured” in squalid, confined and cramped conditions of industrial farms.

• How our universities and agriculture schools have to change the way they teach future farmers for a more sustainable model of farming to take hold – from a paradigm of industrial/factory efficiency and crop specialization to sustainable farming practices that draw on the nature’s design and ecological processes.

• How personal suffering and dissatisfaction from factory farming, like the pig farmer who almost died after being gored by a pig with a lethal virus strain arising from over-use of antibiotics, often precipitate the decision and bold action required to switch to more sustainable and fulfilling ways of farming.

• How our government must be pressed to change the current farm subsidies, regulations, and corporate lobbying and political influence that favors a limited number of large food corporations to support the development of a better, healthier, and more sustainable food system. Along with grassroots political and consumer activism, hopefully Michelle, who clearly embraces the local food movement, and her husband can exert strong leadership to create the change needed.

If you haven’t yet seen the movie, I encourage you to go see it with some friends and see what you learn and take away. It is playing until April 15th – [Fresh The Movie Screenings and Events] (http://action.freshthemovie.com/p/d/freshthemovie/event/display-theater-event.sjs?event_KEY=19502)