(Entry 7) Fresh

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The film Fresh shows the reality of commercial agriculture and why sustainable farming is so important. Most people have yet to learn where their food comes from or how it is procured. The way the information is presented makes watchers feel emotional. For instance, they showed how chicks are treated. Crates upon crates of chicks are quickly and roughly tossed onto the ground, only to have the warehouses they're housed in overpopulated. 

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Watching these animals be cramped in subpar housing where all they can do all day is eat, sleep, and defecate. Chickens, turkeys, cows, and pigs are all cramped into small pens without room to move or have comfort. They are subjected to disease due to such close quarters, so if one animal is sick, the infection can spread incredibly fast. One thing mentioned in the film was that illnesses can mutate because of the constant need to inject probiotics and medication for sick animals. 

Sustainable farming of fauna and flora is better for us to eat and the animals and the earth. Animals can live healthy, whole lives roaming pastures and grazing like they were meant to. If crop farming ceased to use monoculture methods, then the soil used to grow food could maintain nutrients. Biodiversity is good not only for animals but for soil and farming land as well. A farmer in the film uses chickens to help with the waste produced by the cows that graze the grass. The chickens pick out the seeds from the cow waste, and the waste itself helps fertilize the land that feeds the cows and the chickens.