The Reality of Food Aid: Bill Pritchard

The Reality of Food Aid: Bill Pritchard 

How to view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJc0tYNGcWo

Director: TEDx | Producer: TED Talks

Produced | Country: Australia 

Run Time: 13.05 minutes | Language: English 

Synopsis: Bill Pritchard, human geographer, challenges our views on what it takes to create a food-secure world. Bill is an Associate Professor in Geography at the University of Sydney, where he teaches and researches on food, agriculture and rural and regional development. He embraces a geographer's passion to understand the world, believing that the best way to understand an issue is to see it first hand and talk directly to the people involved.

Opinion: Interesting insight into food aid from a geographical perspective.  

Impact of the FTA with Colombian Small-Scale Framers

Impact of the FTA with Colombian Small-Scale Framers and Workers 

How to view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ny3C3d-ToI 

Director: | Producer: Enlalucha Films, US Office on Colombia 

Produced | Country: Colombia  

Run Time: 6.41 minutes  | Language: Spanish (English subtitles) 

Synopsis:  Today, the U.S. Office on Colombia, along with more than 400 other organizations, academics, and individuals from the United States and Colombia, sent a letter to the U.S. Congress asking representatives to vote no on the pending U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement (FTA). The Labor Action Plan has not stopped new violence on trade unionists and labor activists from taking place, nor has it banned third party contracting that obstructs workers’ ability to unionize. 

Opinion: This powerful video voices the opinions of small-scale farmers, laborers and women of how rural areas in Colombia are being displaced. See how hegemonic countries affect the developing world. 

Camp Green

Camp Green 

How to view: http://www.oxfamamerica.org/multimedia/video/camp-green/

Director: | Producer: Oxfam creative productions 
Produced | Country: Uganda 
Run Time: 3.42 minutes | Language: Swahili (English subtitles) 

Synopsis: Fifty feet by 32 feet: as far as farms go, that's probably one of the smallest in the world. But that hasn't stopped Harriet Nakabaale from turning her hard-packed chunk of Kampala into something of a miracle. In a city where overcrowding chokes many neighborhoods and nothing, it seems, can grow in them, Nakabaale's Camp Green is like a beacon. It bursts with living things, all of them edible--an important survival tactic in an urban area where the high cost of buying food can saddle a family with relentless poverty.
Read more of Harriet's story here http://www.oxfamamerica.org/multimedia/articles/harriet-nakabaales-camp-green 

Opinion: Camp green proves that even a tiny plot of land with some hard work can be a new way forward. 

Recommendation:

Common Ground: Urban Farmers Nourish their Communities

Common Ground: Urban Farmers Nourish their Communities 

How to view: http://www.oxfamamerica.org/multimedia/video/common-ground-urban-farmers-nourish-their-communities/

Director: | Producer: Oxfam America
Produced | Country: Global 
Run Time: 4.38 minutes | Language: English

Synopsis:Innovative small-scale urban farmers all over the world are helping to ensure access to local, healthy food. From Harriet's backyard plot in Kampaala, Uganda to Amanda's community farm in Waltham, Massachusetts, farmers share the desire to nourish the world. Oxfam is thankful for small-scale farmers whose work feeds billions of people around the world

Opinion:

Recommendation: Oxfam America 

U.S Food Aid Reform

U.S Food Aid Reform 101

How to view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6Gv-o8BE44

Director: | Producer: Lisa Ferrell 
Produced | Country: United States
Run Time: 2.45minutes | Language: English 

Synopsis: Food aid reform can feed 4 million more people without costing the U.S. an extra dollar. Here's everything you need to know about food aid reform in just under 3 minutes. 

Opinion: U.S food aid has been critical in saving lives and addressing chronic poverty and malnutrition. But the current system, which requires shipping food from the U.S to hungry people in need, is outdated, inefficient and slow, risking lives when every moment counts. 


Recommendation:
Good introductory video for people who are new to the foreign aid reform. 

Life, Land and Justice in Uganda

Life, Land and Justice in Uganda

How to view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17QxF61PVC4

Director: | Producer: Friends of the Earth International 
Produced | Country: Kalangala, Uganda 
Run Time: 5.07minutes | Language: Central Sudanic (English subtitles)  

Synopsis: In Kalangala, Uganda, John Muyisa woke up one day to find bulldozers clearing his land to plant oil palms. John and his community have preserved their forests and lands for generations. Now their way of life is at risk. 

Opinion: Support John. In this video he has had the opportunity to share what happens to communities every single day, many who do not have a voice. 

Recommendation:

Land Grabs - Ethiopia

Land Grabs - Ethiopia

How to view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeQFCBFYlwY

Director: | Producer: The Guardian Films   
Produced | Country: Ethiopia 
Run Time: 11.48minutes | Language: English 

Synopsis: Over the last three years an area the size of Britain has been handed over to corporations to make way for large-scale industrial farming in Ethiopia. With cheap rates and incentives, companies are pouring in to the exploit the land the government has cleared of its people. Many of the displaced are too scared to complain:"what power do we have to stop them? We just stay silent", says one farmer. Despite promises of a better life, many Ethiopians are being left within nothing. Ethiopian Farm Minister, Wondirad Mandefro, shrugs: "they have to abandon their previous way of life".

Opinion: In Ethiopia, one of the hungriest countries in the world, small farmers and communities are being moved off their land as international agribusinesses take over large swathes of fertile farmland.

Recommendation:

Life and Debt

Clip from Life and Debt

How to view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzYGaFv1ryo

Director: | Producer: Stephanie Black
Produced: 2001 | Country: Jamaica 
Run Time: 4 minutes (full film 1hour26minutes) | Language: English 

Synopsis: Life and Debt is a woven tapestry of sequences focusing on the stories of individual Jamaicans whose strategies for survival are determined by the US and other foreign economic agendas.    

Opinion: A great compilation of short clips that summarize well the full length documentary Life and Debt, that focus on the effects of the free trade and IMF policies.  

Recommendation: