Imagine your best friend is making a film about your life, he’s been filming you for 25 years and is finally telling your story just as it comes to fruition. Imagine he is an extremely talented film maker who has produced and directed ground breaking films and award winning documentaries for 20 years. Imagine you lived through the 60s together and greedily swallowed all the creative freedom those years offered you then tumbled to the lowest ebb you could have imagined only to rise again to tell your tale to ardent audiences all over the world. What extraordinary luck you would have. This is the luck of a marvelous man called Farmer John.
John Petersen and Taggert Siegel grew up in midwestern 1950s family farming culture. John inherited his farm at 15, his father dying of diabetes, just as the 60s turned American life up side down. His farm quickly became a haven for artists, philosophers and renegade film makers like Taggert. Aggressive industrial agriculture practices crippling small farmers in the 80s, John’s farm was one of the first to go. I think they called that the Green Revolution - revoltion more like.
Falling into debt and selling most of his family’s land then falling further still, a deep depression threatened to take his life. Farmer John looked a broken man but testament to his strength of character, he awoke from his slumber and opened his world to a new way of farming. Riding the swell of organic and biodynamic philosophies and practices which were breathing hope into modern farming, Farmer John became a hero. Out of the ruins of single-crop agriculture, John created Angelic Organics, an extended farm village where people and art thrive alongside organic agriculture.
This is a film about saving a family farm. This is a film about creating community spirit and reconnecting a farmer with his passions; the land and people.
Tagger Siegel says of this film, “The Real Dirt on Farmer John is a culmination of 55 years of John’s life as a farmer, writer and activist, seen through family home movies, photographs, film and video. By filming the emotional events unfolding in John’s life, I’ve tried to tell a story that unearths the fate of the American farmer and the impact it has on all of us.”
Al Gore says it’s “Unbelieveably special.”
Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune says it’s, “full of curious triumphs and outlandish redemptions”.
If you want to be inspired by the possibilities inherent in this wave of consciousness that is sweeping the planet called localism, watch this film. If you want the good news served to you in a beautiful package, this film will prove to you that art and agriculture can be part of the same living thing - culture.
About the Author...
Joanne Hay, Editor of Nourished Magazine, Chief Nourisher and Mother of three is very grateful to live in Byron Bay and be able to share all she has learned about Nourishment. She has trained as an Acupuncturist (unfinished), Kinesiologist (finished) and parent (never finished). She serves the Weston A Price Foundation as a chapter leader. She loves sauerkraut, kangaroo tail stew, home made ice cream, her husband Wes and her kids Isaiah, Brynn and Ronin (in no particular order…well maybe ice cream first).
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