“Plant This Movie” {Help Fund Great Urban Farming Documentary on Kickstarter}

The video above does a great job presenting core food problems we are facing today but goes far beyond the problems and offers some great solutions to them. The filmmaker, Karney Hatch, is look to get $7,500 donated by Saturday, July 16 on Kickstarter to make a documentary on these problems and solutions, Plant This Movie. The proposal and what the money is needed for is presented at the end of the video.

If you’d rather read than watch, here are some key points in text form from Hatch:

I grew up on a farm, and though I’ve spent most of my adulthood in cities, I’ve always remained connected to the farming lifestyle. My grandparents were huge gardeners, too, so I’ve had the bug for many years. When I first moved to Los Angeles in 2000, I became aware of the idea of urban farming and how much sense it made, especially in a semi-desert like Southern California which steals (sorry, no other word fits!) most of its water from elsewhere. I began researching the documentary in earnest in 2009, and filming began in Los Angeles last year and now is ramping up with this ambitious filming trip which will take me to Asia, Africa and Latin America before returning to the US for additional filming into the Spring of 2012.

Where am I going? I’ve been talking with some of the foremost experts in the field, from Danielle Nierenberg at the Worldwatch Institute to Luc Mougeot at the International Development Research Centre. Also here in Peru I’ve been working with IPES, an NGO which works on urban agriculture throughout Latin America. With all this expert advice, I’m looking at these cities:

Shanghai, China
Kalkota (Calcutta), India
Hanoi, Vietnam
Beijing, China
Tokyo, Japan
Kampala, Uganda
Accra, Ghana
Hyderabad, India
Quito, Ecuador
Havana, Cuba

Of course only so much can fit in to one documentary, so I will have to winnow down the list a bit, but this gives you an idea of what’s on the radar screen….

Hatch will cover the solutions and success stories of urban gardeners around the world as well as some of the ostacles to urban gardening, particularly in the developing world.

The video, when shipped to consumers, will come with vegetable seeds and the idea is that you will be able to plant the cardboard DVD cover & seeds and start your own little urban (or not so urban, if that happens to be the case) garden.

For questions, more ideas, or to help out in other ways than donating via Kickstarter, you can email Hatch at karneyhatch@gmail.com.

For a little more info on the filmmaker, here’s a blurb from the Kickstarter page:

Karney Hatch is a writer/director with one feature film under his belt, “Overdrawn!“, a documentary about predatory lending, featuring Ralph Nader, Joel Bakan (“The Corporation”), a loan shark, and a bunch of everyday people with overdraft stories. He is also an accomplished screenwriter, having had two of his scripts optioned by producers. He has also produced and directed a number of projects for Current TV and several international NGOs.

Looks like a good film. Donate today if you can!