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Eating The Future


The Documentary exposing the truth about factory farming

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Eating The Future Documentary

The food system is broken – but are we still in time to fix it?

Presented by FOUR PAWS International, Eating The Future is a sobering documentary film that sets out to expose the horrors inside factory farms and the failures of our food system, while showcasing alternative methods that offer a brighter outlook for the future.  

Australia
Austria
Bulgaria
France
Germany
Netherlands
Switzerland (German)
Switzerland (French)
South Africa
United Kingdom
US

Our story follows the Narrator – voiced by Bafta-winning Mia McKenna-Bruce – a composite investigator drawn from countless combined experiences of those who work undercover to expose the realities behind factory farms. Terrified of a climate collapse, she embarks on a journey into the food systems that shape our planet. Looking for a glimmer of hope in the darkness, she listens to farmers, doctors, scientists, animal and food activists, and slaughterhouse workers, discovering what it will take to improve the lives of all beings trapped and harmed in this vicious cycle. 

Together we can change the broken food system. Ecological farmers working to high animal welfare standards and exploring alternative ways of farming show it can be done. Now, politicians and food companies must take responsibility, and drive the transition to a better future. For the animals. For the planet. For generations to come. 

Watch the trailer of the documentary here:

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World Premiere of "Eating The Future" at the Films for Future Festival

Eating the Future celebrated its world premiere on November 19, 2024 at the Rote Fabrik in Zurich as part of the Films for Future Festival. The viewing kicked off with our CEO Josef Pfabigan giving a speech. After watching the 46-minute-long movie, we held a round table. The discussion was moderated by Dominik Siegrist. Panellists included our FOUR PAWS expert on farmed animals Julia Fischer, the movie director and producer Katy Jenkyns from Wildlight Productions, and the Swiss cattle farmer Nils Müller, who appears in the film. The premiere was a great success as the  venue was almost sold out and viewers were engaged in conversations after the screening and discussion.

Q&A Section

Who is FOUR PAWS? 

FOUR PAWS is the global animal welfare organization for animals under direct human influence, which reveals suffering, rescues animals in need and protects them. Our vision is a world where humans treat animals with respect, empathy and understanding. Learn more about FOUR PAWS here.

How does FOUR PAWS work on climate and animal welfare? 

As an animal welfare organization, we are alarmed about the unfolding climate crisis. Therefore, we have various campaigns and projects exposing the harmful practices of the meat and dairy industry that exploits billions of animals, people and our planet and demanding a food systems transformation. 

In our Meat Exhaustion day reports, we look at the meat consumption per country. Here, we calculate when a country would exceed its 'sustainable' meat consumption defined by the Planetary Health Diet. This is a reference diet of the renowned scientific EAT-Lancet Committee, which looks into the environmental and health impacts of food. 

We frequently attend climate strikes and protests related to animal agriculture in countries all around the globe.  

Furthermore, systematic animal suffering tied to transport has been going on for far too long, and FOUR PAWS has fought to end cruel long-distance transport for many years. Following years of revealing animal welfare problems in live transport, the EU institutions have finally acknowledged that the current legislation needed better enforcement and changes.  

With this, our policy experts are working tirelessly to ensure that the biggest animal welfare problems are addressed. They also make sure to give a voice to the animals in political settings like the UN Climate Conferences or the European Parliament. 

What does FOUR PAWS work on regarding health and animal welfare? 

FOUR PAWS work addresses the crucial intersection of animal welfare and public health, recognizing that many of today’s most pressing health threats, including COVID-19, Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), and Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), arise from the way humans interact with and exploit animals. AMR, in particular, is a critical issue where the misuse of antimicrobials in factory farming to compensate for inadequate animal husbandry and poor animal welfare significantly contributes to the problem, posing a severe global health threat. FOUR PAWS emphasizes that the solution lies in improved keeping conditions of farmed animals, a reduction of the number of animals farmed and a transition towards more sustainable, diverse, and plant-rich diets. By enhancing the health and wellbeing of farm animals and advocating for better agricultural conditions, FOUR PAWS aims to lower the necessity to use antimicrobials, thus mitigating the spread of antibiotic-resistant infections and preventing AMR from escalating into a larger public health crisis. 

Beyond addressing AMR, FOUR PAWS is actively engaged in tackling other significant health threats, including pandemic risks posed by zoonotic diseases. With 75% of newly emerging infectious diseases originating in animals, FOUR PAWS underscores the importance of addressing human behaviors that exacerbate pandemic risks. By targeting high-risk practices such as factory farming, wildlife trade, deforestation, and fur farming, FOUR PAWS seeks to improve our behavior towards animals and reduce zoonotic spillovers. FOUR PAWS advocates for stricter regulations on legal wildlife trade and the transformation of farming systems, aiming to curb high-risk practices that contribute to spillover of pathogens from wildlife to humans and domesticated animals and their spread. Through these efforts, FOUR PAWS is dedicated to safeguarding both animal welfare and human health while championing stronger international regulations to prevent future pandemics and promote health for all. 

Who is Wildlight? 

Wildlight is a non-profit freelancers’ cooperative delivering investigations for NGOs through fieldwork, data analysis and storytelling. FOUR PAWS collaborated with Wildlight on the movie 'Eating The Future'. FOUR PAWS funded the film and supported the content creation i.e. establishing contact with interviewees. However, the creative development of the movie was with Wildlight. 

Why did FOUR PAWS & Wildlight collaborate?

FOUR PAWS collaborated with Wildlight to create the movie Eating The Future. FOUR PAWS funded the film and supported the content creation i.e. establishing contact with interviewees. However, the creative development of the movie was with Wildlight as they have more experience and expertise in documentary-making.

When and where was the movie shot? 

The movie was shot between 2021 and 2023 in Germany, Switzerland, the UK, and Romania. 

The People Behind the Stories

Image of Dr. Tanja Busse and Josef Parensen
Dr Tanja Busse and Josef Parensen
Dr Tanja Busse is an author, journalist, and agriculture expert and Josef a former conventional farmer, who now only farms as a side job. Therefore, he decided to transition to organic farming. Josef and Tanja explain how European farmers became trapped under mountains of debt.
Image of Portrait of Prof. Katharina Schaufler
Prof Katharina Schaufler
Prof Katharina Schaufler is an expert on epidemiology and ecology of antimicrobial resistance. Currently, she is working as a professor at the university clinic in Greifswald. She tested the samples taken for this movie. She became vegan because of her research.
Image of Dr. med. Gerd-Ludwig Meyer
Dr med. Gerd-Ludwig Meyer
Dr med. Gerd-Ludwig Meyer was a practicing farmer at the farm of his parents. Now he is a specialist in internal medicine, especially, nephrology which is a medical science branch focused on kidney diseases.
Image of Dr. Tara Garnett
Dr Tara Garnett
Dr Tara Garnett is a researcher at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. Dr. Garnett is the Director of TABLE, a global platform for knowledge synthesis, reflective, critical thinking, and inclusive stakeholder dialogue around the future of food.
Image of Farmer Neil Haseltine
Neil Heseltine
Farmer Neil Heseltine takes a thoughtful approach to grazing native-breed cattle on the Yorkshire Dales. Walking through the dry stone wall and fields where his family has farmed for generations. But although he gives his herd a good life of free-roaming the hills, Neil struggles when it comes time to send his animals to slaughter. In 2019 the farm received the National Trust's 'Farming with Nature' award.
Image of Nils and Claudia
Claudia Wagner and Nils Müller
In the Swiss Alpine pastures, Nils and Claudia campaign for more compassionate pasture slaughter to be legalized in Europe. Nils is a trained hunter and marksman. 
Image of Maria and Alberto Gogu
Maria and Alberto Gogu
Maria and Alberto Gogu were slaughterhouse workers. In their kitchen garden in Romania, they describe the modern-day slavery conditions and abuse they experienced as migrant workers in Western Europe.
Portrait of Food Aid Worker
Dee Woods
Food aid worker Dee Woods remembers how she struggled to provide food for her young children after an accident left her disabled. She talks about how climate justice interweaves with socio-economic, racial and gender justice.
Image of Jan Gerdes and Karin Mück
Jan Gerdes and Karin Mück
Jan Gerdes & Karin Mück are running a farm animal sanctuary 'Hof Butenland' in the north of Germany. Jan was the first farmer in the region to convert his farm to organic farming (according to Demeter guidelines). But he didn’t want to send is animals to slaughter anymore.
Portrait of farmer Iain Tolhurst
Iain Tolhurst
The self-taught farmer Iain Tolhurst owns a bio-vegan farm. Iain learned by doing, in communion with the land and with no external inputs that damage other lands around the world, and without using any animal-derived products like manure. The farm 'Tolhurst Organic' is one of the longest-running organic vegetable farms in England. There have been no grazing animals and no animal inputs to the farm for the last 25 years.

Film Credits:

FOUR PAWS International presents a WILDLIGHT Production ‘EATING THE FUTURE’ 

  • Narrated by: Mia McKenna-Bruce
  • Original Music by: Jiří Trtík
  • Director of Photography: Radu Ciorniciuc
  • Executive Producer: FOUR PAWS International
  • Written by: Katy Jenkyns and Radu Ciorniciuc
  • Edited by: Sepp R. Brudermann
  • Directed & Produced by: Katy Jenkyns

 

Promotional Poster for documentary film Eating The Future

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