Respect going both ways: Film brings large-, small-scale farmers together

The Minnesota farmers growing organic produce on a few acres of land don't often cross paths with those who seed and harvest hundreds, sometimes thousands, of acres of corn and soybeans.

One farmer is set on being part of a growing local food movement, selling to restaurants and farmers markets. The other has an eye on markets way beyond Minnesota.

And one filmmaker, Graham Meriwether, is trying to bring both types of farmers together.

Meriwether was a city kid who grew up and became interested in the local food movement. He read about the environmental impact of meat production, and it became the subject of his first film.

But while putting it together, he realized it was too one-sided in favor of small-scale, local production. He needed to see the other side of meat production for himself.

"I spent the next two years going around the country and filming with large-scale conventional hog farmers and chicken farmers and cattle raisers, and it totally changed my perspective," he said. "I realized that these are good people and they just got stuck in a system that has a lot of challenges."

In his latest film, "Farmers for America," Meriwether doesn't hide his view that large-scale, conventional agriculture is hurting rural communities. The industry is consolidating, forcing some farmers out of business and sending most of the profits elsewhere.

But in Meriwether's film, that message is secondary to telling the stories of individual farmers, especially those who are working against all odds to make a living.

"I feel like so many times we'll sit down, eat a meal, maybe from a drive-through window, maybe with family, maybe alone. But we don't often reflect on the fact that a family dedicated their lives to feeding us," he said. "So, for me, the biggest thing is having gratitude for farmers. Without the work that farmers do, no other job would be possible."

Graham has spent the past nine months traveling the country to screen the film. Attendees gather before each showing to eat local food and stay afterward for a conversation about the future. At one such event at the Trylon Cinema in Minneapolis Thursday night, two Minnesota farm families who appeared in the film spoke about the challenges they face.

For Emily Zweber and her family, it's that "there's just so much milk globally."

Zweber's family runs an organic dairy just south of the Twin Cities, and they've felt low global milk prices through pay cuts.

"New Zealand and Australia have had awesome years of growing hay and raising cattle and producing a lot of milk, Canada the same as us, we've had really good growing seasons for hay," she said, "and when hay is cheap, we can feed a lot of cows, and when you feed a lot of cows, you produce more milk, and so I don't know if there's a single fix."

The Zwebers have found other ways to make money, including selling chickens and grass-fed beef directly to consumers.

So in a way, they're participating in both a local and global food system.

Meriwether hopes more large-scale farmers will work with young people interested in growing produce or raising small numbers of livestock.

"I guess my dream would be that there could be a synergy there," he said. "Rural America needs young people, could there be a synergy there? Do you think that could happen or do you think there will be two different worlds that are sort of co-existing at the same time?"

Glen Groth said he thinks Meriwether's vision could become reality if people build relationships. "I think a degree of respect has to go both ways," he said during a panel discussion after the film.

Groth runs a farm with 65 head of dairy, corn and soybeans in southeastern Minnesota.

"Existing farmers have to recognize there's potential," he said. "The newcomers have to recognize, too, that the corn and soybean farmer isn't going away, the hog confinement farmer, he isn't going away, so work with them. Be friends with them. Don't try to tear each other down. That's really, I think, where the future lies."

The film's next showing is this weekend in Missouri, where attendees will have the opportunity to help a young farmer featured in the film raise enough money to buy land.