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 I did not know much about the American food industry when I began working on the documentary film "Food Inc." I had no preconceived point of view. I thought I would talk with all of the people who produce our food and I would learn from them. Pretty simple. And pretty wrong.
This world, the world that feeds so many, was off-limits to a filmmaker like me. Walls went up everywhere. I would have had more access to my subject if I'd made a movie on nuclear terrorism. It took me a while to appreciate the totality of the stonewalling. Ultimately, I recognized what was going on: a focused effort to stop consumers from thinking about their food.
And yet, when we talk about food, we are talking about what we put into our bodies. And this is a subject where questions are off-limits? Americans operate and buy food in a free market. We have to be allowed to make our decisions based on information.
 Before the film was released in June, Monsanto, the world's largest seed producer, put up a Web site dedicated to discrediting "Food Inc.," claiming we were "demonizing" farmers. We never equated Monsanto with the American farmer. But that still didn't explain why corporate representatives were never willing to go on camera. If their products were so good, why were they so afraid? What were they hiding? I ended up spending more in legal fees to get this movie made than I did on all 15 of my other documentary films combined.
So, unlike my other films, "Food Inc." was not about what I learned, but instead about what food consumers are not allowed to know. I hope that still opens people's eyes to what goes into their mouths.
The film played into a movement that started with Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation" and was fed by Michael Pollan's writings. It is a broad-based movement led by mothers who want to feed their kids healthy food. But it reaches, now, far into the halls of Washington as we move toward changing health care. How can you fix health care and ignore that a third of Americans born after the year 2000 will develop Type 2 diabetes while the federal government subsidizes the production of corn-based foodstuffs that are not good for us to eat?
We are far from alone in sounding the alarm. In his book, "The End of Overeating," former Food and Drug Administration chief David Kessler talks about how corporations make food as addictive as possible. The same people who sell us tobacco are turning food into the equivalent of nicotine. And their mantra is "personal responsibility."
When food companies compete only on price, the players just get bigger and bigger. Industrial farming has only existed for 40 to 50 years. We are only just realizing it isn't working. In our university system, you cannot study Monsanto seeds without the company's approval, and if you write anything negative, Monsanto will pull its research funding out of the university. Real food science is disappearing.
As we begin to appreciate the unsustainability of our current industrial food system, the question is whether the food industry will be forced to change. These food corporations are powerful. They are just as capable of making things better as making things worse. On one hand, I see a race to the bottom -- food becoming cheaper and cheaper at the same time our system of agriculture becomes more and more abusive of the earth, of animals and of ourselves.
Yet, I have come to believe we have had more of an effect on our world than I thought we would. I was totally pessimistic when we finished the film, only to be shocked by the response to it. People were outraged. Food is a personal thing most people can relate to. It has real power.
There is something so universal about food. When I try to think of my next film subject, nothing is as all-encompassing. Other issues seem so abstract. People don't care if we lose journalism or government. But none of us can do without food.
I was just invited to speak at The Center for Food Integrity, a food industry group led by Perdue, the chicken producer. I was invited because the group had commissioned a market survey showing its customers are concerned about food safety. If they want to stay in business, they have to address these issues. So they have begun reaching out to their critics. They know they have to start listening.
Now, because these companies feel forced to enter the conversation, I feel an obligation to not walk away. I may not have been able to ask questions of these companies while I was making "Food, Inc.," but, whenever I can, I do so now. By holding the industrial food giants accountable, we will learn how to improve the system. We will find the common ground that allows us to feed the world responsibly.
Robert Kenner, the director, co-writer and co-producer of "Food, Inc.," has received numerous awards for his work, most recently, the 2006 Peabody for Exceptional Merit in Non-fiction Film-making and the Greirson (British documentary award) for his film about the Vietnam War, "Two Days in October."
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