Food for Profit, director Giulia Innocenzi:«This is how meat lobbies influence European policies» – The interview

In her first documentary the journalist shows the contradictions of the Common Agricultural Policy which finances intensive farming in Europe

Raw images the ones you see in Food for Profit, the first documentary by journalist Giulia Innocenzi who has been dealing with the welfare of animals on farms and their impact on the environment for years.In the hour and a half film, shot together with director and screenwriter Pablo D'Ambrosi, two narrative threads are intertwined.The first is the one seen in many similar productions.Innocenzi, with the help of some collaborators, secretly visits various intensive farms where the animals do not live.They suffer, they get sick, they are pumped full of antibiotics and treated like objects enslaved for the sole purpose of producing as much meat and milk as possible.Those who are not killed by infections, hernias, or farmers who are not willing to "waste" feed for animals considered unproductive, survive, without ever seeing the light of the sun, just long enough to fatten up and be slaughtered.

The meat lobbies

In the second thread, the journalist organizes a bold infiltration into the world of meat lobbies.Between a glass of sparkling wine and a slice of Iberian jamón, lobbyists and MEPs have no problem considering genetic modifications to pigs to produce six-legged pigs and pushing for meat production on intensive farms to continue its growth at full speed.The film was shot in the years in which the Common Agricultural Policy for the five-year period 2023-2027 was negotiated.The set of rules with which the European Union chooses how to spend a large part of its budget, dedicated to the economic support of livestock and agriculture.Among its objectives there is also that of making the sector, which constitutes one of the most human activities, more sustainable polluting and destructive for the planet.But something seems to be going wrong.From Food for Profit and Giulia Innocenzi spoke about her success in cinemas in this interview for Open.

Food for Profit has been accused of being anti-European, for having represented the EU as a body that moves - driven by the lobbies - unitedly against animal and citizen welfare.What do you say to these criticisms?

"Actually Food for Profit it is a super pro-European film that tries to prod Europe into doing what it has set out to do.In 2019, the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen had announced this crazy Green Deal which would have made Europe become the first green continent in the world.Those promises were all - and I repeat all - disregarded, precisely because the lobbies made themselves heard starting from the tractors that invaded the streets.We with Food for Profit iInstead, we ask that Europe be the first truly green continent in the world and to do so it could immediately eliminate public subsidies for intensive farming, and move those hundreds of billions of euros towards a true ecological transition."

Have you encountered positive examples of those who try to change the CAP for the better so that the money really goes towards improving the lives of animals and the sustainability of farms?

«The first positive impression of the European Parliament it was those who hosted us, that is, the three MEPs who allowed Food for Profit to be launched at a community level in the European Parliament. These three MEPs are Ignazio Corrao (Italy), Tilly Metz (Luxembourg) and Francisco Guerreiro (Portugal).They had never seen the film before.We didn't even send it to them in advance because we were afraid that it would circulate earlier and that the screening would be blocked.But these MEPs respected our request and I believe that this is the highest expression of freedom of expression.These are signs of hope:there are many people who are fighting in Europe to have another agriculture model."

And what were the reactions once it was screened?

«The room in the European Parliament was united in appreciating the complaint.There were however two somewhat strange people who always took videos and photographs when the lobbyists were shown, especially when the figure of Paolo de Castro [European MP and vice-president of the Agriculture Commission, who in the documentary is shown very close to the lobbies] emerged of the flesh, ed].Shortly after, we found out that those two are meat lobbyists.An envoy from the European Parliament was also present at the European Parliament that day Hyenas, who asked them for a comment on the film and their response was that this Food for Profit it is a “useful” film because according to them it helps them improve.This obviously in front of the cameras."

And with the cameras off?

«Behind the cameras, however, what the meat companies are doing is to distrust us.At the moment Food for Profit received four warnings in total.One from a company seen in the film who said they absolutely do not want their brand associated with the film;another warning came from a company that is not in the film, but which asks not to be associated with the film;the third very dangerous warning from my point of view was against a citizen who screened the film.It means that a company with billions in turnover per year has warned a citizen who was projecting Food for Profit.The classic David versus Goliath case.An intimidating act that took place in Bertinoro in the province of Forlì Cesena.Finally, the fourth warning came to us, very recently, from Paolo De Castro:the MEP who was filmed by our lobbyist.He asks that all the scenes where he appears be removed, but obviously we won't do that."

In recent years, have you had an idea about how the European Union's common agricultural policy should be reformed?How do farms manage to get money despite not meeting minimum animal welfare requirements?

«Today the common agricultural policy has two major critical issues.The first is that it helps the one who has the most the most.A paradox encouraged by the common agricultural policy for which many small agricultural companies have closed over the years due to poor economic competitiveness compared to large agricultural companies.Then, the CAP also helps intensive farming, huge and polluting factories where animals live poorly.From my point of view, intensive farming should not receive any type of public funding, but unfortunately in Europe there is no legal definition of what intensive farming is and this obviously helps the livestock industry, because today over 90 percent of meat, milk and cheese produced in Europe comes from intensive farming.Here the lobbyists speculate a lot and like them some MEPs, because they maintain that there are no intensive farms in Europe and that they do not receive public funds.But they are two great falsehoods."

Food for Profit has been in the ranking of the most watched films at the cinema in Italy for weeks.It cannot be said that there is no awareness of the conditions of intensive farming.If this awareness already exists, what is missing for a transition towards a fair and sustainable farming model?

«There is a huge need for awareness and will and public opinion is shifting.But there is a huge political blockade.There must be an increasingly strong push from public opinion from below to force politicians to act and the European elections in June are the first major event in which something can be done.The animal rights associations have come together and created a platform called Vote for Animals where there are ten programmatic points, many of which concern intensive farming.Candidates for the European elections are asked to express their opinion on ten points.Citizens can then see who is in favor and who is against.It is a way of voting consciously, rather than the classic logic of "less worse""