“Al Grano: Corn Regime” addresses the livelihood struggles of maize growers in Mexico – center of origin, domestication and biodiversity of maize - and the balance/unbalance created by environmentally sustainable and exploitative agro-practices today. The documentary showcases specialists who examine the politics of food and GM technology using as lens: maize cultivation, technology, trade and border crossings at the intersection of ancient and contemporary sciences and technologies. In the film, social anthropologist Elisabeth Fitting argues that maize agriculture is seen as culture where unevenly shaped opinions and meanings are formed in engagement with wider economic and political structures.

Keywords: Economy, Work and development, Food, Maize, Indigenous peoples, Corn, Corporations, Biotechnology, Transnationalism, Development, Mexico.

Year of production: 2011

Duration: 7mins 37secs

CREDITS:
Pat Badani: Director - producer - interviewer- camera operator - editor
Richard du Casse, Desiree Agngarayngay, Marina Badani: Video Technical Assistant

Interviewees:
-Elisabeth Fitting, Social Anthropologist, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada. Author of The Struggle for Maize: Campesinos, Workers, and Transgenic Corn in the Mexican Countryside, Duke University Press (2011).

-Pat Mooney, Executive Director, ETC Group (Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration) Ottawa, Canada.