'Food, Inc.' chews up Monsanto, agribusiness cousins

The movie "Food, Inc." begins in the aisles of a grocery store, then eventually makes its way through Southern chicken coops, western feedlots and Indiana cornfields. The film ventures into hog slaughterhouses, through the hallways of Congress and to a celebrated farm in Virginia, exploring how food makes its way to American dining tables and skewering the industrialized food system along the way. It's not a scenic drive. The documentary attempts to demonstrate that the food Americans eat is largely controlled by a handful of corporations — and all at the expense of the environment, human health and the economic well-being of farmers. Many farmers likely haven't seen the film yet because it hasn't made its way out of larger cities. But the documentary has incited some farmers, who, along with food activists, have filled blogs and social media sites with debate and rancor. "The thing the film does is attempt to pit everyone against the agribusiness sector," said Trent Loos, a cattle and goat rancher in central Nebraska, who runs a nonprofit organization called Faces of Ag. "Farmers understand we have to work in conjunction with agribusiness." "Basically they're implying we need to go back 80 years," Loos said. "Kenner thinks he's siding with farmers and he's not. He's ignoring the farmers' willingness in implementing the science and technology in today's food system."...STLToday