Film Library
Once NASA'S Dream, A Food Startup Is Making 'Air Protein' a Reality
Lisa Dyson, founder of Air Protein, literally makes meat out of air. She might just transform the future of food. Official Selection, NYC Climate Film Festival and winner of The Newswomen’s Club of New York 2024 Front Page Award for Short Video.
Healing the Land
In this inspiring pig-filled video, we visit Wild Harmony Farm in Exeter, Rhode Island, a family farm that sells organic pork, grass-fed beef and pastured poultry.
'Summer of Heat' Tackles Climate Crisis
Armed with megaphones, small children and Jane Fonda, climate activists are taking on a new foe in the battle to end fossil fuels: Wall Street. The big banks and insurers that lend money to oil and gas companies "are just as bad as the companies that they're financing," says Marlena Fontes, co-founder of Climate Families NYC. "Wall Street has gotten off up until now." Her organization has joined with others via the Climate Organizing Hub to stage a series of peaceful events all summer long in New York City. Watch as we follow Fontes to a typical event, this one outside Citibank headquarters, where she is arrested while chanting "Shame On Citi." Luminaries in the climate fight, including Fonda and community leaders Sharon Lavigne and Roishetta Sibley Ozane, join in the action. "It's hard to understand what the path is to win, but I believe that there's a path, and we're going to figure it out," Fontes says.
From Water to Dust
Profile of scientist Kerry Kelly and her work around air quality issues in Salt Lake City.
Winner of SABEW 2024 Best in Business Awards for Short Video: This video did a splendid job of reporting and explaining an important story about the sharp decline in the level of the Great Salt Lake and the impact on air quality. Clear, succinct and engaging, backed by solid sourcing and excellent video production.
Native Table
You won't find wheat flour, cane sugar or dairy on the menu at Owamni, winner of the 2022 James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant. The Minneapolis eatery is co-owned by Sean Sherman, a.k.a. the Sioux Chef, and Dana Thompson, and the idea is to serve and elevate Indigenous foods before colonization. Watch the inspiring video to hear more about how Sean and Dana came to launch Owamni and also North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NATIFS), which runs the Indigenous Food Lab, a professional kitchen that provides training on Native cuisine.
The 3 Cricketeers
NEW YORK WILD FILM FESTIVAL Official selection, 2023. Claire and Chad Simons are the co-founders of 3 Cricketeers, a cricket-farm business in Minneapolis that sells live crickets (mostly to pet shops), but also a newly revamped line of edible products billed as “daringly delicious” for curious human snackers. There are crunchy crickets dipped in decadent dark chocolate or – for the more savory minded – roasted crickets dusted with spices like earthy cumin or herbaceous oregano. Sales of the novelty products have been brisk this year, especially after 3 Cricketeers was featured in June on a popular Youtube Channel called “Snake Discovery,” about misunderstood animals. The company also sells cricket flour – an eco-friendly powder made by blanching, dehydrating and grinding up crickets – to food producers. Research points to the health benefits of crickets – they're an excellent (and affordable) source of protein , vitamins, minerals and fiber, and may benefit gut health. Today, the couple raise millions of crickets each month in a 10,000 square-foot indoor farm that uses "a fraction of the land, feed and water" that would be used for raising other sources of protein, particularly beef. Not to mention, "crickets emit virtually no greenhouse gas."
Harvesting the Sea
Fast-growing can kelp mitigate the impact of climate change by removing carbon and nitrogen from the water. And compared with terrestrial plants and animal meats, kelp is loaded with digestive and nutritional benefits. Yet 95% of edible seaweed is imported – something Atlantic Sea Farms is on a mission to change. In this video, CEO Briana Warner talks about partnering with Maine lobster farmers to grow and harvest kelp in their offseason, which helps diversify their income. It's a cooperative farming model similar to those used by Stonyfield Organic for milk and Ocean Spray for cranberries. Kelp farming "uses the exact same equipment as lobstering does," plus lobster farmers already have a "massive skill set" on the sea, she says. Watch the video to see how line-grown kelp is extracted from the ocean. Ocean foods like seaweed and kelp are predicted to be the hottest superfoods of 2023.
Bow & Arrow Brewery
Featuring Shyla Sheppard, co-founder of the country's first Native women-run craft brewery.
Seeds of Resilience
The plant amaranth is native to Central America, but with permission from a collective of Maya Achi farmers in Guatemala, its seeds are being sown in the U.S., including at Stone Bend Farm near Ithaca, New York. "As we look at climate change, it's a plant that's so healthy, and that can adapt to so many different places and conditions," says Sarah Montgomery, co-founder of Qachuu Aloom Mother Earth Association, who hosts events (like this one, above) to share ancestral knowledge of how amaranth is grown.
Food Rescue
In 2015, Leah Lizarondo started 412 Food Rescue with Giselle Fetterman (wife of Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman) to prevent perfectly good food in the Pittsburgh area from going to waste. A year later, Lizarondo used her background in technology to help build Food Rescue Hero, a platform that mobilizes volunteers – now in more than 25 cities in the U.S. and Canada – to pick up surplus food from restaurants or grocery stores and deliver it to those who need it most.
Farming the Sky
Nona Yehia, architect and CEO of Vertical Harvest Farms in Wyoming, talks about vertical farming.