Farming in America: The Land of Junk Food

In the land of junk food, agriculture is controlled by two magic words: productivity and profitability. We investigate the excesses of American agribusiness. 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. Every year, the country’s farmers gather at the Farm Machinery Show in Kentucky, the apex of the US agriculture industry. There, one can find million-dollar tractors and a show that fans wouldn’t miss for the world: the tractor race is the most prestigious in the country. In California, we investigate the gigantic plantations where carrots, artichokes and strawberries are grown. With a desperate shortage of water, farmers water at breakneck speed, even if it means depriving the region’s inhabitants of access to drinking water.