Farming in America: The Land of Junk Food | Storyteller

In the land of junk food, agriculture is controlled by two magic words: productivity and profitability. America’s two million farmers are formidable businessmen. XXL farms, feedlots and pesticides: Anything goes when producing more and more. In the cattle feedlots in the Midwest, animals are herded by the thousands into pens without a single blade of grass, fattened up and drugged with growth hormones. These are industrial methods pushed to the extreme.

In California, we investigate the gigantic plantations where carrots, artichokes and strawberries are grown. With a desperate shortage of water, farmers pump it as fast as they can, even if it leaves local people without drinking water. An investigation into the excesses of American agribusiness.

[NOTE: Farming in America: The Land of Junk Food available until March 16, 2026.]

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

By Celine Missoffe | Director

As a French filmmaker, I always had a lot of questions about agricultural production methods in France, so I simply asked myself once: How does it work in one of the most powerful countries in the world?

The United States is one of the world's leading agricultural powers. Agriculture is a business, almost like any other. Through human portraits, I tried to show the two sides of the same system: On the one hand, men and women who are passionate about their work and proud to feed the planet; on the other, an overly intensive production system that can destroy nature and exhaust its workers.

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