Real Dirt

I went to see The Real Dirt on Farmer John on Friday. The film takes viewers on an amazing emotional roller coaster as John Peterson, an eclectic midwestern farmer, tells the story of his difficult and rewarding relationship with the soil. His life has been richly documented from the beginning (and even more so after he befriended a film maker in the 70s who spent a lot of time shooting footage of John's trials and tribulations over the next 30 years) and most of the film comes from old media edited together with John's self-written narration placed over. It's quite a ride from the erosion of the tradtional farming lifestyle (he had an uncle who plowed with horses up until the 1950s) to nearly being wiped out by his debt-financed push into industrial agriculture in the 70s and 80s to reinventing the farm as an organic oasis in the 90s through today. Click below for the preview.