Food Inc. as Rhetorical Adaptation

Food, Inc. stands up as an adaptation of Pollan’s nonfiction book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, even following a similar narrative structure that begins with an interrogation of industrial farming and its relation to corn, that then moves nostalgically to the pastoral alternative where cattle feed on field grass instead of feedlot corn. Pollan’s work, however, offers an extensive bibliography of resources to support his claims. In Food, Inc., however, broad-based evidence is replaced with single case support, so individual examples are meant to support assertions about both the control of the market and the negative consequences of such vertical integration.

The film’s expose of the chicken industry is a case in point. In this segment, the narrator asserts that Tyson isn’t “producing chicken; it is producing food and is mechanized so chickens are grown to be almost the same size.” He explains that Tyson produces “lots of food on little land for the least money.” Then an example of a Tyson farm in McLean, Kentucky is used to support this claim. The conditions in the henhouse seem to make the case against four companies controlling 80% of the market. According to this chicken farm owner, mass production leads to dust and feces, as well as chickens with bones and internal organs that grow so fast the chickens are unable to stand. To protect herself from these conditions, the farm owner wears a mask while applying antibiotics to their feed. Yet, according to the owner, “bacteria work up resistance, so it’s not working.” She claims undocumented workers work at plants and attend work even if they are sick, as well. According to the narrator, the Perdue Chicken Company also keeps chicken farmers under their thumbs, but we do not see an example of a Perdue farm because the company will not allow the filmmakers to document workers on the farm. Instead, this one example of a Tyson chicken farm gone wrong is used to illustrate a problem with much broader consequences. 

Food, Inc. also includes individual examples of cattle production and corn production before offering an alternative—organically grown foods that are meant to help viewers reminisce nostalgically about a pastoral past now out of our grasp. Again the film provides an individual example to support its assertion that growing and consuming food in traditional ways is a viable solution to factory farming. Joel Salata’s Polyface Farms is shown in stark contrast to the factory farms like Tyson Foods and Smithfield. On the Polyface Farm, cattle eat grass instead of a feedlot diet of corn, dead cows, chickens, and manure, Salata explains. Manure fertilizes the grasses, he explains. According to Salata, “they hit the bulls-eye at the wrong target—plant, fertilize and harvest corn with satellites when they should be asking if we should feed them corn at all.” 

 After highlighting problems with genetically-altered corn and soybeans like Roundup Ready, the film ends with a series of solutions to the industrial food problem: Respecting the season, buying organic and non genetically-modified foods from local farmers and farmers’ markets, growing one’s own food, and allowing food stamps at farmers’ markets are just a few. But the film’s message is almost lost in the voiceover narration and over-reliance on individual examples to substantiate claims. Although Food, Inc. does provide a plethora of information about industrialized farming and argues from a clear position, its message is weakened by both its nostalgic vision and by the rhetorical strategies the filmmakers choose to employ.