Most movie directors are perfectionists by nature, so it’s no surprise that Robert Kenner had a few regrets about scenes that didn’t make it into his critically-acclaimed documentary “Food, Inc.”

UM-Dearborn Provost Catherine A. Davy, L, helped bring Robert Kenner, the director of the critically acclaimed movie Food, Inc., to campus as part of the 2010 Urban Farming Summit. PHOTO: NIck Meyer/TAAN

But one of those regrets may surprise you. Despite Detroit’s reputation as a food wasteland of sorts, Kenner wishes he had spent time filming there for his movie, which is nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary.
While Detroit is often criticized, and justifiably so, for its lack of grocery stores and abundance of fast food spots, Kenner is encouraged by what he sees with the growing urban farming movement in Detroit and in Michigan.

“I really wish that Detroit could have been a part of the film because something special’s happening here,” Kenner said on Friday, February 19 at the University of Michigan-Dearborn’s Growing Sustainable Communities: Urban Farming Event.

“I didn’t realize how big this urban farming movement has become here,” Kenner said.

“The answer to creating the sustainable food system we all deserve could lie in the backyards and vacant lots of Detroit (where numerous gardens are being planted).”

The event featured a panel of guests who are active in the growing push for cleaner, healthier, more sustainable food sources in light of recent economic struggles and the growing need to feed America’s struggling, sick, poverty-stricken population.

Kenner also hosted two screenings of his movie the previous night at UM-Dearborn along with a Q&A session.

Food, Inc., which became Amazon.com’s best-selling DVD in early February, focuses on a variety of food-related topics, exposing animal feedlots and slaughterhouses for their shockingly poor and unsanitary treatment of animals and the environment (not to mention workers, many of which are immigrants with few rights); lifting the curtain on genetically modified foods, which have been banned in some countries and still aren’t labeled in the United States despite their prevalence and serious health concerns raised by many scientists; and various other topics ranging from government support for unhealthy foods to corporate monopolies on food systems.

Kenner equated current food company selling practices to tobacco companies’ past tactics.

“Detroit was labeled a food desert, and poor people are targeted the same way tobacco companies targeted poor people,” Kenner said.

Kenner added that tobacco companies touted the health benefits of smoking in past years before people realized the truth. Companies also downplayed tobacco’s health risks in the beginning, much like corporate proponents of genetically modified foods and other relatively new man-made ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup have done.

“The similarities between the addictiveness of food and nicotine are very real,” Kenner said.

The urban farming scene in Detroit and various other communities in addition to the rise of organic farming projects provide hope for many, however.

Some of the projects detailed by panelist Ashley Atkinson of The Greening of Detroit Project include the Recovery Track program which puts prisoners to work on farming plots as well as a program launched by the Detroit Public Schools system through a grant to create gardens in schools and to teach kids how to grow and maintain their own food supplies.

Malik Yakini of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network also spoke about movements encouraging corner stores in Detroit to carry fruits and vegetables.

The idea to bring the landmark summit to Michigan-Dearborn’s campus was in large part thanks to the vision of Provost Catherine A. Davy, who came to the school in July from Bentley University in Massachusetts.

“With Detroit basically being declared a food desert, a lot of people responded to that and it led to the great historical movement that’s here today,” she said.

“When I took the role of provost, I wanted to think of creative ways to serve the community and urban farming is a perfect example of that.”

Despite the advances of urban farming in Detroit and other areas throughout the U.S., Kenner had a stern warning for audience members about the critical state of the current food industry.

“I think we are capable of having a food crisis in this country, and unlike the financial crisis, we can’t bring it back,” Kenner said.

“If the world ate and consumed like Americans we’d need five Earths, and meat is the major problem.

“Many people who see the film tell me they’ll never eat meat again, but the main point of the film is that our industrial system is the problem because it places too much power in the hands of too few corporations who are basically controlling the food system.”

With so much power and influence on Capitol Hill along with conflicts of interest in government agencies, those companies can bend the rules in favor of their less-healthy, addictive products even as the health of the U.S. continues to deteriorate and many preventable diseases like diabetes and heart disease continue to skyrocket.

“In Detroit, 6-8% of people now grow their own food and that’s a number that we would like to see increase,” Kenner said, comparing the “nowhere to go but up” food situation to fairly recent events in the Caribbean.

“In Cuba, the Russians pulled out and the local population had to fight off starvation, but then everyone started to farm and the entire island had organic farming,” he said. “People ate fewer calories but they became far healthier.”

Kenner added that the food system is also the key to slashing healthcare costs going forward.

“Unfortunately, the government is subsidizing the wrong food with our tax dollars and we’re paying for it in healthcare costs,” he said.

“How can we have a new healthcare system until we fix the food system?”

For more information on urban farming projects in Detroit and across the state, visit www.detroitagriculture.org.