Another film that is currently available online for free is ‘The Need to Grow’ produced and narrated by Rosario Dawson. You can watch it this weekend at https://grow.foodrevolution.org/.

Just like ‘Kiss the ground’ or ‘The Biggest Little Farm’ I mentioned in my earlier posts, and many more, it is another film about the soil and the food we grow. We hear from such environmental specialists as the mycologist Paul Stamets or the Physicist and Environmental Activist Vandana Shiva. As one of them says in the film, ‘we got to stop focusing on the problem and start focusing on the solution’. And by watching it we will also find out that ‘not one single solution is going to solve every problem’ but many small solutions collectively will lead to a ‘societal shift’. And we need to be part of it.

This documentary follows mostly three people: an inventor Michael Smith, a Food Activist Alicia Serratos and a Micro-Farm Master Erik Cutter. They all meet and cooperate with each other. Erik grows food on Vertical Hydroponic Towers and educates children like Alicia about the importance of their food. She is in charge of the Seed Library and the Community Garden at her school. And Michael’s invention, called Green Power House, is a kind of a greenhouse in which he accelerate the regeneration of the soil. Natural biological processes that take decades and hundreds of years he replicates there in hours or days.

Unfortunately, it also generates a lot of free power. Why would that be a problem? Well, because they are still people who sell us electricity and do not want to loose their source of income. Other people sell pesticides and do not want biological fertilize that Michael can produce as the by product to replace them. And finally the food industry also doesn’t need such competition. We are not surprised then to hear that it all burned down completely one night, with no apparent reason or explanation.

Michael’s Green Power House (GPH) was like paradise on Earth and reminded me about another invention I watched a documentary about last year, during the pandemic. It was called ‘Spaceship Earth’ and it was the story of Biosphere 2 — an experimental facility in Arizona, the largest vivarium or artificial closed ecological system ever created. In 1991 it was like a prototype of the Big Brother program. Eight people were closed inside the facility for 2 years to grow their own food and prove that it would be possible while in space or on another colonized planet. And they were observed and communicating with the external world by cameras. It was a very interesting experiment, ultimately stopped during the second mission by Steve Bannon. Yes, that Steve Bannon.

So again and again we see that politics and financial interests of a few people jeopardize the well-being of the planet and the rest of the population. And we need to do something about it.