I spent a lot of time during the past two weeks seeing outrageously great films at the SF Film Festival. including this outstanding film on the coming (and current) water crisis.
The film - Last Call at the Oasis - is both upper and a downer.
While I had heard about the scary pesticide atrazine and its gender-bending qualities, I'd never seen the main research behind it (even though he teaches at U.C. Berkeley) and I hadn't known that Erin Brocovich was still on the job (as it were).
The film comes to theaters this month - don't miss it! Here's an insightful overview of the film from Reuters. And another good piece (an interview with Brocovich) in the Washington Post.
Obviously we totally need to change our approach to agriculture. The fact that Napa's running dry so that growers can raise overirrigated grapes which later have to be adjusted by winemakers is just nuts. But the worst is that most of our wine is grown in the Central Valley, a desert, with an insane amount of water - and all just to make jug wines that benefit mainly four old Italian families. Doesn't quite make sense, does it?
In Europe, it's not really kosher to pour on the irrigation...makes terroir an irrelevant notion, according to their way of thinking, when you put the grapes on irrigation. Their roots are shallow so there's no sucking up the minerals in the soil.
Thanks to those who dry farm and are organic...
There's a lot of great information in the film about pesticides as well.
Don't miss this - coming to theaters soon!
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