description:
The film follows investigative journalists at The Center for Investigative Reporting as they uncover efforts by foreign actors to control food and water to the detriment of local populations.
The film outlines a global warming reaction by several nation states, where the powerful use force, economics and illegal mercenaries to take control of food and water stocks. The narrative begins with the 2014 purchase of US-based Smithfield Foods by Chinese WH Group, which the filmmakers say gave away control of a quarter of all pigs in the US. It then follows other hard-to-explain deals, such as the purchase of arid land in Arizona by a Saudi company. Russians hiring American cowboys to work in a region too cold for farmland. And Blackwater deals to secure land in Africa. All these strange commercial arrangements are linked by “following the money”, a phrase heard several times in the film, which identifies connections between governments, commercial enterprises and legal and illegal military actors such as mercenary companies. The filmmakers ultimately draw the conclusion that it is all planned responses to changes stemming from climate change.
While the film is mostly archive and research image collages, it also contains some guerrilla film making, such as of the crew being denied access and detained at a Zambian airport.
