Earlier this year, Mammalian Biotech's media unit began production on a documentary short following three operators who are transitioning from conventional animal agriculture to distributed cell cultivation production as part of the Pure Culture network.
The film is called Growing Forward. It is in post-production.
The Subjects
The three operators featured in the film each came to the transition differently.
One manages a cattle operation in the Midwest that has been in his family for three generations. He is 34. He made the decision to transition after the third consecutive year in which input costs outpaced revenue. He was clear, in our initial conversations, that his decision was not ideological. He was looking for a production system that worked economically.
A second operates a smaller mixed-use farm in the Pacific Northwest. She transitioned earlier than most, which meant she had less to compare to and fewer established expectations about what farming should look like. She describes the learning curve as significant and the result as more stable than what preceded it.
The third operates outside the United States. His context is different in almost every dimension — regulatory environment, land access, commodity market exposure — and his reasons for transitioning are correspondingly different. The film does not attempt to generalize across these three stories. They are three stories.
The Approach
The film does not argue for cell cultivation as a superior alternative to conventional agriculture. It follows three people who have made a specific decision and documents what that decision looks like in practice — the learning period, the equipment, the economics, the parts that worked as expected and the parts that did not.
There is no narration. The filmmakers and the subjects decided early in production that voiceover would impose a frame on material that was more interesting without one. The subjects speak for themselves in their own environments about their own decisions.
The film is approximately thirty minutes long.
Release
Growing Forward will be distributed through Mammalian Biotech's media channels and through partner institutions. A version will be available for screening through agricultural extension programs and educational institutions.
A trailer will be released when post-production is complete. Screening inquiries may be directed to the Mammalian Biotech media unit.