Who Will Feed Us?
The average age of the U.S. farmer is 60.
Half of America's farmland is going to change hands in the next 12 years.
20% of our food is imported.
This is the story of young people who are stepping up.
Take action. Host a screening where your community can rally around young farmers in your area.
This century-old organization helps aspiring farmers and ranchers learn how to overcome the challenges to starting and sustaining a U.S. farm business. They include help in accessing capital, expertise and credit for people interested in starting and preserving a family farm. Contact them!
This organization is dedicated to showing veterans how their colleagues in arms have already started farming successfully. The FVA makes grants that help farmer veterans expand their operations and help others across nation connect with each other for help in getting started. Contact them!
This organization committed to sustainable, organic agriculture has created internships and apprenticeships for aspiring farmers, self-instruction courses, booklets and numerous ways for beginning farmers to connect with each other. Contact them!
MikeRoweWORKS Foundation is a non-profit that focuses on helping to close the skills gap through initiatives like the Work Ethic Scholarship Program which provide support to people who want to learn a skilled trade.
Eager Farmer connects experienced farmers, managers, land owners and wannabe farmers.
This organization has helped to shape agricultural policies that aid young and aspiring farmers acquire land and capital for starting a farm. Through the national and state chapters, they help farmers of all kinds connect with each other and the best practices to maintaining successful farm operations. Contact them!
Mike Rowe: Narrator
Mike Rowe is a bridge between rural and urban. His natural charisma, humor, goodwill, and wisdom, make Mike the perfect individual to voice Farmers for America, a film created to celebrate and inspire the next generation of American farmers. Mike is a once-in-a-generation talent. He created and hosted the iconic TV series Dirty Jobs, a show that celebrates people who do the forgotten, taken-for-granted, blue-collar jobs that keep society humming along.
Mike is also the country’s leading advocate for the skilled trades and CEO of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, a non-profit that focuses on closing the skills gap and has provided millions of dollars in work ethic scholarships.
Graham Meriwether: Director, Writer, Producer, Cinematographer, Editor
Graham Meriwether spent four years crisscrossing the country -- to find the farmers who imbue this film with their hard work and entrepreneurial spirit. Previously, Graham directed American Meat, a pro-farmer story about the burgeoning local food movement. Meriwether lives on a homestead in Massachusetts with wife, Susan, and children, Abraham and Maya Lou.
Tanmaya Shekhar:
Producer, Writer
Tanmaya Shekhar applies a strong background in trade, public policy and international economics to research and fact-check critical macro-economic issues presented in Farmers for America. Tanmaya graduated with an MS in Economics from the Indian Institute of Technology in 2011.
Maarit Nissilä:
Editor, Writer
Maarit Nissila grew up in Finland and moved to the U.S. to attend the American Film Institute where she earned her M.F.A. degree in Film Production. She has worked as a documentary editor in Los Angeles and New York, and her most recent credits include the CNN documentary series This Is Life With Lisa Ling as well as Scene of the Crime for Discovery Channel.
Joe Palmer:
Editor, Writer
Joe Palmer is a film and sound editor from Dublin, Ireland. He moved to New York in January in search of film and life experience. After being lucky enough to be a lead editor on Farmers for America, he has gone on to work on a number of other documentaries. He is currently an editor at 4th Row Films.
Andy Trimbach:
Cinematographer
Andy Trimbach is a filmmaker/photographer living and working in Brooklyn, NY.
Ryan Nethery:
Cinematographer
Ryan Nethery is a cinematographer and filmmaker based in the USA. His work includes Emmy-winning documentary TV and feature films for HBO, Starz, Vice, Amazon Studios, Viceland, National Geographic and others.
Kyle I. Kelley:
Cinematographer
Kyle I. Kelley is a Brooklyn-based cinematographer who enjoys working on all projects, from short fiction to feature documentaries, and everything in-between. His recent work includes fiction feature Maggie Black, upcoming documentary features Good Ol’ Girl and Jeff Golub: Train Keeps A Rolling, and PBS American Experience: Sealab.
Alison Plante:
Supervising Composer
Alison Plante is the Chair of the Film Scoring Department at Berklee College of Music. She plays keyboard and wind instruments and sings, performed in a Gamelan for three years, and has conducted both orchestra and choir. Her composition honors include the Janet Gates Peckham International Award for Excellence in the Arts and the Olga and Paul Menn Foundation Prize for an original literary or musical work.
Chanmi Seo:
Composer
Chanmi Seo started her professional music education at the University of Alaska, Anchorage where she worked with Professor Karen Strid-Chadwick who introduced her to the beauty of jazz. Seo, raised in Seoul, South Korea, then was accepted at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston where she learned how to compose diverse and profound music, a must for a film score composer.
Joseph Cilento:
Composer
Joe Cilento is a composer and engineer who has refined his musical skills through years of practice, extensive study and performance. Joe received a Bachelor of Music with dual majors in Film Scoring and Music Production/Engineering from Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, graduating with Magna Cum Laude honors. He is constantly striving to utilize his musical upbringing in order to create new and exciting art.
Gabriel Majou:
Composer
Gabriel Majou is an award-winning composer of media music, concert and live shows. The Paris-born Majou is an honors graduate of the Berklee College of Music where he won awards for original film scores. Besides his film-scoring, he has been a versatile session violinist and concert master as well as other collaborations as a soloist with electronic DJ in Hollywood. He is the co-founder of 2Birds Band, a fusion string band.
Sergio Peçanha:
Animation & Graphics
Sergio Peçanha is a visual journalist and illustrator based in New York. He creates diagrams, maps, charts and animations that help make complex subjects accessible to anyone. He is originally from Rio de Janeiro.
Theresa Loong: Producer
Theresa Loong is a director and producer who creates films, games and interactive experiences. Her directorial documentary debut, "Every Day Is a Holiday," premiered on public television and showed at the Asia Society Hong Kong and the National Gallery of Art. Theresa is chairperson of the non-profit film collective, The Filmshop. Her current projects include "Feed Me a Story" , “Game On”, and "Bought/Broken"
Zach Timm:
Editor, Writer, Music Editor
Zach Timm is a Brooklyn based filmmaker/music lover. Who has worked for years as a doc style videographer, editor and most recently music editor. Also is a member of and works as event producer/social media manager for NYC based film collective, Filmshop.
Suzanne K Milton:
Writer
Suzanne K Milton is a freelance writer/editor/actor living in New York City. She's been published in "Read Me" magazine and has spent time editing with the award winning television station, WTOC-TV in Savannah, Georgia.
Neil Hamilton:
Special Advisor, Consulting Producer
Neil Hamilton is an American lawyer and agricultural economics writer. Hamilton currently holds the Dwight D. Opperman Chair of Law at Drake Law School in Des Moines, Iowa, where he is also the Director of the Agricultural Law Center. He is a former chairman of the Agriculture Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools.
Memo Salazar:
Consulting Producer
Memo Salazar is a filmmaker, writer & artist who has directed Public Enemy music videos, coauthored a TED Talk with Brian Greene, and played the role of Supervising Editor on Sesame Street, among many other broadcast television and film projects. He is also an activist who runs a CSA and writes about politics and other social issues.
Tom Jennings:
Consulting Producer
Tom Jennings has been producing for FRONTLINE since 2009. His film Law and Disorder about civilian deaths by New Orleans police after Hurricane Katrin, made with ProPublica reporter AC Thompson, won the prestigious George Polk Award and was nominated for an Emmy Award. Jennings has also won two national Emmy Awards, the duPont-Columbia Silver Baton Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award and three Writer’s Guild of America Awards.
Mary Hendrickson:
Special Advisor
Mary Hendrickson has spent 15 years working to create local food systems in the state of Missouri through University of Missouri Extension. Hendrickson currently serves as the Undergraduate Advisor Chair in Sustainable Agriculture and teaches courses on sustainable food and farming systems at MU. S
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