Hyland,+How+I+Fell+In+Love+with+a+Fish

Title: How I Fell In Love with a Fish Director: Dan Barber Year:2010

This is not so much a movie as it is a video clip. It is a TED talk delivered by chef Dan Barber on the subject of sustainable fish farming. His central argument is that if we are to sustain our way of living and keep good food on our menus (or in his opinion put them there for the first time) we must reanalyze the effectiveness of monoculture farming and agribusiness. He tells a story of the first fish he fell in love with because he thought it was the best modern systems had to offer in terms of sustainable farming and that if more people farmed like the people he was supporting, we would be much better off. And it is true, we would be. But upon further research into the process that led to this fish he really loved, he discovered, while they truly were the most sustainably raised mass market fish, they were still farmed in a nature that made it unsustainable and would eventually extinguish populations and resources. This is why he says agribusiness as a whole needs to be uprooted and reworked.

The main point of his persuasion is a story of a farm he came across in southwest Spain. It lies where a river lets out into the Atlantic Ocean in an area that was once used for shipping. At a time, the canals were pumping water out of the river at a rate which destroyed the ecosystem and at a point wiped out 98% of the bird population that had lived there. When the land became too dried out to ship from, it was bought up by a fish farmer. This farmer simply flipped the direction of water flow in the canals and over time brought the dried up land back to its marshy origins and began farming it for fish. Instead of farming as much agribusiness has been with feed stocks and intense over population, he just let the ecosystem grow and it flourished.

One part of the story involves coming across a flock of thousands of flamingo who flew from a town 150 miles away every day to feed on the farmers fish. Dan Barber was astonished that the farmer was letting this happen but the farmer was elated to see the flock. Every year the farmer lost 20% of his farm to birds and the farmer was pleased because he knew this meant his farm was a healthy, thriving ecosystem. The climax of the story is when you realize that here is a farmer whose crop is self-regenerating through the natural spawning of the fish, who does not feed his animals, and who lets predators feed on his product. Yet, he farms the maximum for his capacity as a farmer. This is described as farming extensively instead of intensively.

The argument and story of the entire presentation was excellent. However, one part I did not find as compelling as the rest was a brief discussion he held about the cleansing process of the water that goes through the farm. The farm takes in the water from the river that flows into it on its way to the ocean. The healthy bacteria and algae in the ecosystem absorb almost all of the contaminants that are common place in rivers such as solid waste and fertilizers to the point where the water leaving the farm is cleaner than the water entering it. This is obviously good news for the ocean, however, it does nothing for the upstream ecosystem and the contaminants are absorbed into the farm in some way. The imagery also could have used work. A lot of the photos he was showing did not quite match his story. For example, he described the awesome sight of the thousand flamingos feeding off the farm, but his slideshow just showed a small flock of about twenty.

This film is excellent for any audience. Barber does an excellent job of laying out the problems with current agribusiness and tells his story superbly to help the viewer feel like they are with him around this farm as well as packing it full with interesting factoids. It was also very easy to watch because it was not feature length. This allowed Barber to keep every sentence he spoke interesting and would help people avoid losing interest.

As far as helping improve the environmental educational value of this talk, Dan Barber could have employed some graphics such as showing change in various species populations at the farm. Additionally, insight into the actual amount the farm yielded – such as how large of an area was able to eat its fish – would have been helpful.

The final wrap up is a call against major agribusiness. It is no surprise that the way we currently farm, resources will run dry and our civilization will fall apart. Additionally he gives criticism of the question “How can stuff like this feed the world?” To this he responds saying that in truth, we have no trouble feeding everyone in the world. As far as calories consumed and created goes, there is more than enough to amply feed every person on the planet. The problem is distribution. Barber says if every region sustained a few farms like this, the farm owners would get wealthy, the ecosystem would get healthy, resources would be created rather than destroyed, and best of all, everyone could eat good food every day.