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Wheat (8)
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Cattle CountryBeth Zinkan 1944 9 minThis short 1944 documentary offers a portrait of ranching in the foothills of southern Alberta. Exciting scenes of great herds being rounded up and moved to summer feeding grounds suggest the large scale on which this business is run, while segments on spraying, feeding and shipping illustrate some of the less dramatic jobs involved in bringing Canadian beef to the world's tables. -
Eye Witness No. 401952 11 minThe Eye Witness series is a collection of short documentaries featuring Canadian news stories from the 1940s and '50s. This segment includes Prairie Harbour: The Port of Flowing Grain, a look at the lakehead cities of Fort William and Port Arthur, funnelling centres for western grain on its way to world markets. In Modern Miracle: Surgery is Safe, the appendectomy of patient Henry Brown demonstrates the advances in modern medicine. Co-Op Carpenters: Home-Made Community illustrates the principles behind the cooperative housing program for veterans in Carleton Heights near Ottawa.
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The Fight for True FarmingEve Lamont 2005 1 h 29 minIn this documentary, crop and animal farmers in Quebec, the Canadian West, the US Northeast and France offer solutions to the social and environmental scourges of factory farming. Driven by the forces of globalization, rampant agribusiness is harming the environmemt and threatening the survival of farms. The proliferation of GMO crops is a further threat to biodiversity as well as to farmers' autonomy. In Europe as well as North America, a current of resistance bringing together farmers and consumers insists that it is possible - indeed imperative - to grow food differently.
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Grain ElevatorCharles Konowal 1981 15 minThis documentary short is a visual portrait of “Prairie Sentinels,” the vertical grain elevators that once dotted the Canadian Prairies. Surveying an old diesel elevator’s day-to-day operations, this film is a simple, honest vignette on the distinctive wooden structures that would eventually become a symbol of the Prairie provinces.
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Man Against a FungusMaurice Constant 1955 38 minThis film dramatically portrays a struggle that is waged annually in wheat-growing areas--man against the wheat rust fungus. Views of the destruction caused during rust epidemics emphasize the urgency with which plant pathologists are endeavoring to breed resistant wheats and, eventually, to annihilate the blight. Animation, time-lapse photography and cinephotomicrography illustrate the life cycle of the fungus and the complex alternation of generations which poses one of the chief problems.
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Waterfowl - A Resource in DangerDon Virgo 1964 16 minThis nature documentary shows the immense flocks of birds, their habits and their dependence on the wetlands of the Prairies. The Prairies are the incubators of vast numbers of Canadian waterfowl, principally ducks, but as more land is drained and cultivated there are fewer breeding grounds. Produced by the NFB for the Canadian Wildlife Service.
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We Are What We EatAube Giroux 2004 24 minSet to beautiful, pastoral images, We Are What We Eat introduces us to people bringing together their love of good food and passion for environmental protection. We meet wheat and strawberry producers, along with a wine grower and a chef — each doing things at their own pace, while resisting the demands of agribusiness.
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Wheat CountryRoger Blais 1959 20 minHere is a film showing how each spring, prairie farmers renew their gamble with wind, frost, drought, rust and hail to begin again the cycle that may bring a good, or a lean, year. This story of big-scale wheat farming is told by a farm woman whose sons represent the fourth generation to operate a Saskatchewan farm.
