Herbie Cottle grew up farming and managed a conventional tobacco farm in Rose Hill, North Carolina for most of his life. A few years ago, troubled by the amount of pesticides and herbicides he used, he decided to switch to organic. Now he runs a successful vegetable farm with 200 acres in production and sells to local supermarkets and to retailers up and down the East Coast. George O’Neal has a much smaller organic operation in Timberlake, North Carolina but says he doesn’t want to get any bigger. He likes handing his produce directly to the customers and restaurateurs that he sells to.

Attendees of the Seed Savers Exchange annual conference share their favorite seed stories and discuss why preserving and propagating heirloom variety seeds is important for both community and the environment.

Is it possible that rice, traditionally a crop best grown in tropical climates, will find a home in the American Northeast? A biologist at Cornell University and several small scale farmers in New England are trying to find out. In this short film a small educational farm in New York City is the testing ground for a variety of rice made in the Cornell lab.

Why would someone want to be a vegan? Why would someone want to eat a pork chop that was raised in confinement? How do we make these decisions? A writer, a photographer and an activist-filmmaker engaged in food studies and politics reflect on their own choices and habits.

Aaron “Big A” Styron and his son have been fishing on the Carolina coast for generations. In recent decades, due to increased regulations, climate change and rising coastal property values, the fishing industry that they have long been a part of is in a deep decline. Several area fishermen and women joined together to create a cooperative Community Supported Fishery in the hopes of sustaining their livelihoods and the waters that support them.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1208 is currently in the middle of a campaign to unionize the Mountaire Farms chicken processing plant in Robeson County, North Carolina. The plant employs 2,000 people and slaughters 430,000 chickens a day.

The food bank in Oxford, North Carolina supplies the local rural population with emergency food like canned goods and frozen meals. When they start receiving fresh vegetables from a nearby organic produce aggregate, a lot of the clients aren’t sure what to do with it. Jester squash looks like a decorative holiday gourd. Rainbow chard is suspiciously like a poisonous plant. Andrew Pinney, a nutritionist, starts hosting food demonstrations to make the vegetables less intimidating.

Tilthy Rich Compost is a bike-powered composting service in Durham, North Carolina. Riders Rachael Fiorentino and Reid Rosemond talk about why composting matters and how it’s done.

Nancy Gould’s food service course is one of the most popular within the North Carolina State Prison system, but will her class be able to pull off a fine dinning experience for 60 volunteer patrons behind the gates of Orange Correctional Center? The five-month course is administered by Piedmont Community College and graduating inmates earn 16 credits toward a degree if they can stand the heat.

Director, Camera One | D.L. Anderson
Audio Production, Camera Two | Mikel Barton
Editor | Brooke Darrah Shuman, D.L. Anderson

Joe lived next to Julia and Johnny for years and barely knew the couple — but he always smelled delicious ginger and garlic creations coming from their window. One day he knocked on their door to ask for a Chinese cooking lessons. His love of Chinese food turned out to have a longer history than he knew.

A short examination of the art of the pun, narrated by George Gopen, Professor of the Practice of Rhetoric at Duke University and principal judge for the inaugural Durham Pun Championship at the Regulator book store. 

Audio and Editing by Brooke Darrah Shuman, Photo by D.L. Anderson