The Tonasket Community Cultural Center will be screening “Farmageddon” at its Friday Night Coffee House on Friday, Feb. 24.

TONASKET – The Community Cultural Center of Tonasket will be featuring an exclusive screening of “Farmageddon” at its Friday Night Coffee House on Friday, Feb. 24.

The film, sponsored by Slow Food Okanogan, looks at the threat to our right to raise and buy food from each other.

The survival of rural communities depends on the health of the community’s economy, which is tied up in the success of local farmers. Agribusiness and regulatory agencies have made it harder and harder for small, family farms, especially those who begin adding value to their crop, to stay afloat. In turn, our right to choose to buy food produced by our neighbors is threatened, thereby creating more hardship for the family farms and their communities. Slow Food Okanogan presents the film “Farmageddon,” which explores why this is happening, who benefits and what we can do about it.

Filmmaker Kristin Canty’s quest to find healthy food for her four children turned into an educational journey to discover why access to these foods was being threatened. What she found were policies that favor agribusiness and factory farms over small, family-operated farms selling fresh foods to their communities. Instead of focusing on the source of food safety problems — most often the industrial food chain — policymakers and regulators implement and enforce solutions that target, and often drive out of business, small farms that have proven themselves more than capable of producing safe, healthy food. These farmers often buckle under the crushing weight of government regulations and excessive enforcement actions.

“Farmageddon” highlights the urgency of food freedom, encouraging farmers and consumers alike to take action to preserve individuals’ rights to access the food of their choice and farmers’ rights to produce these foods safely and free from unreasonably burdensome regulations. The film serves to put policymakers and regulators on notice that there is a growing movement of people aware that their freedom to choose the foods they want is in danger, a movement that is taking action with its dollars and its voting power to protect and preserve the dwindling number of family farms that are struggling to survive. A movie trailer can be seen at farmageddonmovie.com.

Slow Food Okanogan is part of a global, grassroots movement with thousands of members in over 150 countries, which links the pleasure of food with a commitment to community and the environment. Slow Food Okanogan, and the world-wide organization, believes everyone has the right to good, clean, and fair food. With over 250,000 supporters, 25,000 members and 225 chapters nationwide, Slow Food USA advocates for food and farming policy that is good for the public, good for the planet, and good for farmers and workers.

The CCC presentation will feature an all-local soup and bread supper from 5:30-6:45 p.m., followed by the film at 7 p.m.

Admission to the film is by donation; the soup-and-bread plate will be available for a suggested donation of $5 a piece. Proceeds from the meal will go to the CCC; donations for the film will help defray the cost of the screening.