Out to Pasture

The short film Out to Pasture: The Future of Farming? (34 minutes) can be used in conjunction with Foodspan Lesson 2: Animals and Lesson 6: Turning Toward Sustainability.

Students—and other viewing groups—will find this Discussion Guide useful for digging into the film’s central issues.

The film contrasts raising food animals on pasture with the prevailing industrial approach. Several pasture-based farmers are profiled; they discuss how they got started in farming (three transitioned from confinement operations), what’s important about their farming methods, how their conventional-farm neighbors view them, how to keep young people on the farm, the future of the food system and other topics. The film also features Robert Lawrence, founding director emeritus of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, and John Ikerd, a leading thinker on sustainable agriculture.

A collaboration between the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future and the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), it was produced by Center staff member Leo Horrigan and directed by Allen Moore, a MICA professor and independent filmmaker.