Windbreaks on the Prairies

With the steady falling of the water table, the careless exploitation of timber stands and the yearly recession of glaciers, water conservation has become an urgent concern of the Alberta and federal governments. This film looks at the various measures being taken to preserve the flow from the watersheds of the Rocky Mountains.

In this documentary, crop and animal farmers in Quebec, the Canadian West, the US Northeast and France offer solutions to the social and environmental scourges of factory farming. Driven by the forces of globalization, rampant agribusiness is harming the environmemt and threatening the survival of farms. The proliferation of GMO crops is a further threat to biodiversity as well as to farmers' autonomy. In Europe as well as North America, a current of resistance bringing together farmers and consumers insists that it is possible--indeed imperative--to grow food differently. The Fight for True Farming is a film of grim lucidity but also irrepressible hope.

Man-Made Niagara: Construction of the Des Joachims hydro plant on the Ottawa River adds to Ontario's power resources. Irrigation Revitalizes Dust Bowl: In the southern Alberta drylands the St. Mary's River is being harnessed to provide life-giving irrigation for prairie crops. Underwater Harvest: Lobster season in New Brunswick provides choice sea foods for gourmets' tables.