Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer - Book Report/Review Example

Number] Farm text in context and analysis Novella Carpenter, not regarded as one of the famous writers in the field of English, but her work has created extraordinary awareness. Her book ‘Farm City: The education of an urban farmer’, contains elements from her own life that are revolving around a garden located in Ghost Town. The book provided a great insight into the life of a normal averaged person who was first very against the idea of being like her parents, but then resorted to a half-life of two, one of her own choice and one she kind of mistakenly stumbled on although the stumble was quite the most fortunate thing for her little fortune (Carpenter 2). Contrasting with the movie, more of a documentary, known as Food Inc., we can see how the same scenario presented in Carpenter’s book is related here. The movie does not have much to do with the book or the farming techniques of Novella Carpenter, but if the book has been read, it should be followed by the movie to know about the food situation in the world. There are a lot of questions that rose in the movie and have been beautifully documented. It demands the knowledge of the most important issues in our society these days; health. Same is the target of the Farm City. While the Novella’s memoir deals with the story of self-grown and healthy food, the documentary Food Inc. is more like a wakeup call for the population which thrives on fast foods and has forgotten the healthy way to eat things. It also further goes to explain why this is the case, why it is so easy to get a meal at McDonald’s or Burger King while shopping for vegetables and fruits is a hassle and costs more. The two are, unknowingly, comparing entirely different lifestyles. The documentary illustrated that the food industries do not want their customers to know the real facts about the food that you are being served with. This is because if you may come to know the real inside facts about the food that is being served, you may not eat it. It is the deep world that is hidden from all of us. Considering it with what Carpenter did, she held a farm that was responsible for producing healthy food that can be enjoyed by her. The documentary showed that people would love to spend 99 cents on Mc Donald’s Big Mac burger, but will not go for the vegetable broccoli that makes up of the same price. As mentioned in the book, Carpenter had her own farm and was indulged in the activity of producing farm healthy food. As comparing to the current scenario and as mentioned in the Food Inc., the food scientists of today’s decade have spent their time in reengineering the food we eat. This is because the grocery store owners want their food to last longer and they do not get stale. The documentary proceeds to show images of meat and such and perhaps this are why the ratings have been made PG. Conversely, Robert Kenner, director of Food Inc., has very bravely put forward daring questions about the food situation in the world and the rising sickness of obesity and diabetes. Novella has not really established such a drastic measure of why she had started to do farming. She does care about the community and at times through certain chapters she talks very animatedly about it. Unlike all corporate farmers, Novella takes care of her animals, which is a very rare quality in itself. Another very important aspect has been mentioned in the novel, to which a contrasting image has been given in the documentary. In the novel, Novella learnt special methods from a local butcher nearby, learning methods on how to harvest a hog to the utmost extent without any piece of meat being wasted, and learnt how to make delicacies such as headcheese, pork-broath and salami. However, when listening to the documentary, the corporate farmers show no consideration on the meat wasted while the merciless slaughter of the animals. Ground workers in commercial slaughter houses for hogs had to carry intestines and waste of nearly 32,000 hogs every day and even got infected by the diseases carried in them as intestines were never cleaned. Difference such as these in working standards of both a local farm owned by caring farmers such as Novella and commercial farms and slaughter houses that are owned by ruthless corporate clients and owners. Even after this difference, people prefer to eat from restaurants such as McDonalds who are the biggest clients of these heartless corporate slaughterhouses and don’t prefer to eat from local restaurants that order meat from local farms. There are other prospects discussed in Novella’s novel that has been discussed comparatively in the documentary. That aspect is the care of the farm animal and the respect for the circle of life and everyone’s role in it. At Novella’s farm, she shared great affections and emotions towards her farm animals and showed great care for them This was proved when she mentioned that she felt extremely sorry when her Turkey was killed by a stranded dog but at the same time, she knew it was going to happen eventually with a slaughterer’s knife. Hence, she used the meat of the turkey for her Thanksgiving meal and showed utter respect for the farm animal. On the other hand, this is not the case at corporate farms. Chickens are mercilessly slaughtered at the slaughterhouse, and it isn’t observed whether the chicken is in such shape to be slaughtered and considered healthy. This is clearly mentioned in the documentary. Same is the case with larger birds such as a Turkey. Disrespect towards animals is one major point of contrasts between these farmers. The nurturing of animals was a huge difference between the two types of farms. The livestock at Novella’s farm were fed with scrap foraged from neighbouring local restaurants. This scrap is particularly nutritious for the livestock, their proper growth and hence for a proper source of meat. This is not the case with corporate farmers as mentioned in Food Inc. The livestock is grown and raised in about half the time then it was previously and the livestock is fed with cheap and unhealthy feed such as corn. Corn only increases the body mass of livestock to such an extent that their bones don’t grow appropriately and hence at the time of slaughter, their bones are not able to withstand their own weight and hence the livestock is hardly able to stand their own feet. If this wasn’t enough, then industrial scientists have also brought genetic changes to these poor creatures by increasing the size of their breast, hence disfiguring them to a much higher extent. These poor livestock creatures are not even able to see the sunlight throughout their brief 7 week life and are kept under extreme conditions and fed with a non-nutritious diet. The meat taken from this livestock is sold to big restaurants and companies who sell it to people saying that their meat is cheap; however the price that the environment and the livestock had to pay is priceless. The biggest tragedy for livestock is that the government is totally silent over the ruthlessness of corporate farmers over the livestock. They are protected under the law from all sorts of convictions and enjoy whatever they can do to their livestock and plants without anyone questioning them, whereas honest and hardworking farmers such as Novella have to go through a lot of restrictions and receive nearly no support from Government authorities. Even after knowing all these monstrosities conducted by these corporate farmers, people prefer to buy and eat at fast food restaurants and delis, who are their biggest clients. This is a sad moment for the nation because a much healthier food is available at these smaller and better farms which are pretty much equal in price with these restaurants but vary a lot regarding the level of quality. Food available at these farms is far healthier and better for not only the user, but the environment and the livestock to a much greater extent. Work Cited Food Inc. Director: Robert Kenner. Magnolia Studio, 2008.Video Novella Carpenter. Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer. US: Playaway, 2009. Print Read More