Acquisition of Smithfield Foods and war in ukraine An example of how other nations control food and water as a means of seizing power.

Director Gabriella Cowperthwaite’s alarming film, which had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, follows Nate Halverson of the Center for Investigative Reporting in a series that shows the human costs of the hidden trades that tighten control over food. Present a case study. water. One infuriating example is how Saudi Arabia invested in farmland in La Paz County, Arizona. There are no regulations for pumping water here. So Saudis “drink milkshakes” of their inhabitants by drying and drying the water to send hay back to the Middle East to feed their cattle (and people). Meanwhile, residents of La Paz county are seeing their wells running dry.

Farmers from Nebraska are moving to Russia to support one of Putin’s goals: the rodeo. In Zambia, colonization is being repeated again as private military companies investing in Africa to mine their land, an undeveloped resource, are driving out the farmers. Climate change is also a factor affecting the geopolitics of food and water.

Cowperthwaite’s film unfolds like a thriller, as it involves Halverson obtaining a cache of secret emails (called “The Trove”). He and his investigative team were also denied entry into Zambia, and an interview with the alleged whistleblower was canceled. But they are tenacious, chasing the money and keeping in touch to show the horrific effects of what happens when nations start using food as a weapon.

However, “The Grab” ends with some promising options. Cowperthwaite spoke to Salon about making a new documentary about her.

Nate says he was looking into pig And seven years later he connected it to the art of making people invisible. How did you find this story? How long have you been working on this film? And do you have any idea of ​​where this film might lead?

I worked on it for 6 years. It was a little complicated. I came on board a year after Nate reported the Smithfield pig story. He was beginning to see different versions of food and water scarcity growing around the world. The Center for Investigative Reporting referred me to this topic as a reflection on impending hunger. That was the lens they were using. I started by asking questions, and Nate had done so much research that he answered them quickly. There was a moment when I realized This is human agency. There are people who use scarcity to sacrifice others to get what is left for themselves.

Can you tell us about the case studies you presented in the film? What decisions did you make about which examples to include?

I didn’t include here why Nate and I can’t sleep at night, especially because Nate has been reporting on this for so long. Arizona’s story is so relatable and clear that I found it very powerful. There are people who see the well running dry and don’t understand why, and don’t have a lot of money. What they are beginning to learn is that another country is rapidly using aquifers to feed cattle in Saudi Arabia.

It was a very clear socioeconomic example. It’s easy if you have enough money and power to pull one across the community. See what you can grab onto. [the earth] without anyone knowing what was going on. It was amazing.

There were other good stories, too. One hit the editing floor very late. GERD, Ethiopia’s Great Renaissance Dam, geopolitically one of the most vulnerable regions in the world he is one, and if anything happens there, all superpowers must be involved. If Ethiopia dams the Nile, its water will not reach Egypt in abundance. It starves the Egyptians and plagues their peasants. It’s happening in real time now. Every country worries and thinks about this.

World War III begins here. It’s very complicated and there are so many players.Complex and only 90 minutes, it was hard to include. [viewers’] interest. I am very responsible and should not be overloaded. I had enough information to make it into a series.

Nate talks about telling stories right and at scale. What can you say about the creation of a narrative that goes through all sorts of turns, from the historical part about the Chinese famine to the interest groups preying on Africa’s resource depletion and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine?

I wanted this to be a geopolitical thriller. I didn’t want to feel this was completely pedantic or that we had all the answers. I wanted the audience to feel part of the investigative reporting that was unfolding in front of the . It’s generally an exciting story. There is something important about the audience feeling they are revealing it with you. We are no smarter than anyone watching this. Nate is excavating because it’s his job. People should feel like they’re sitting in the front row on this journey, and it helps hold everyone’s attention through dense, intense information.

People are following what we do in real time. I wanted to start with food and water and aquifer depletion, but what drove me crazy was the element of global conflict – how this could lead to war. There is a nature. Where powerful people have more of themselves, others have less. Starving people on their feet is not only bad for the country, but bad for the world. become an international crisis. When starving people around the world touch our doorstep. It brings disease, refugees, bare shelves in grocery stores, and higher prices. It’s an international security issue. It was a portal of interest to guns, invisibility cloaks, defense, and how this whole issue pushed into the conflict space.

Edward Hargroves of Goldcrest Farm Trust has an interesting interview. Some interviewees are getting very close. You will be able to access the meeting, and in some cases you will encounter obstacles. What can you say about the people you photographed and the coordination of meetings and stories?

No one knows this better than a reporter, but this has been one of the biggest challenges of all time. People ghosted us when we found ourselves in conflict with very powerful people. When they realized the scope of what we were going to do, they either canceled the interview or didn’t call back. We didn’t leave too many stones behind when it came to excavating a powerful entity trying to claim the last arable land left on Earth. Potential interviewees were running away from us. They said, “I can talk about my area, but I don’t want to go.” there isThere are wasp nests that people don’t want to poke. My previous documentary, Blackfish, was a David vs. Goliath story that focused on one company. There are many Goliaths in this movie.

You also call people like Eric Prince, probably won’t talk to you for the movies. Is there any danger in exposing ties to the Saudi prince and Putin?

Another thing that took a long time, and became a variable in the film, which took six years, was how confidential the information had to be. There is no room for not reporting or not reporting all the facts. Nate and his team combed through every word. I was going through piles of email trying to figure out pretty specific things like who was getting the arable land, where and how. . We were very disciplined and surgical about it. I didn’t mine anything unrelated to the movie. It was a reporting of the discipline the team, especially Nate, had and we were able to produce a document we could stand by. I’ve never seen a documentary that was so thoroughly researched legally, but getting the facts right was very important. It took a while.

“The Grab” offers some calls to action. What impact could your film have to inspire change?

The main thing is to keep everyone informed. Got a better understanding of how the world works? Did it feed your brain a little? That’s the hardest part. In “Blackfish” I was told not to go to SeaWorld. The first part of “The Grab” is the scope. The U.S. has a zero water strategy and sees it as a national security issue or rewrites centuries of water laws that were created when people thought the population was sparse and resources were infinite. there is no. If you come across a law that addresses water issues, please read and participate. Another is that the entire food system needs to be rewritten. We need regenerative agriculture and we need to understand this system differently. Do not buy out-of-season foods. All of these things we’ve heard before, but hopefully now have greater context and make more sense.

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The point is when people ask, “What can you do?” They are asking, “What can I do without changing what I do or how I live?” Inertia is very strong. Stopping your own personal lifestyle train is very difficult for some reason. If I ask, “What can I do without changing the way I live?” my answer is “nothing.”

Everyone has to change little by little. You have to think about what is right for you and what you can do. If there’s one thing you can do, do it and scream from the rooftops. If you see someone wasting food and it feels like a gut punch, say something and it’s about you and do it to the fullest. It’s from A small change that each of us must make. We can’t really have a conversation about what we can do without him eating 100% less. Then it’s easy. These things help the environment and prevent running out of resources too quickly.

“The Grab” is about stopping powerful entities from grabbing what’s left of them. Ensure governments develop water strategies. These are the bigger ideas that need to be floating around and we need to support them. I hope this film gives you the context to sign that law and realize it’s important and 100% impactful.