The Center for the Environment at Catawba College and Salisbury’s Bread Riot will host a screening of “Dirt! The Movie,” followed by a panel discussion, on Thursday, March 1, at the center facility on the Catawba campus.
Bread Riot, a non-profit food advocacy organization dedicated to “facilitating a supply of locally produced food, utilizing sustainable farming practices,” a press release said, will offer a “tasting” of local foods at 6 p.m. The movie will begin at 6:45 p.m.
“Dirt! The Movie,” an award-winning film directed by Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow, was inspired by William Bryant Logan’s acclaimed book “Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth.”
The film looks at the history and current state of soil. The movie’s website notes that dirt “recycles our water, gives us food, provides us shelter and can be used as a source of medicine, beauty and culture.” While destructive methods of agriculture, mining practices and urban development have endangered the natural resource, the film points out that visionaries throughout the world are coming together to repair the soil.
“We are treating dirt as a story, not a topic,” says Rosow. “We want people to start off with an emotional connection to dirt. Then we want to instill a sense of caution about the destructive things we are doing to nature and dirt and how those behaviors impact our daily lives.”
Panelists will discuss the movie after the screening. Those on the panel include Jim Graham, farmer and past county commissioner for Davidson County; Amy Hoffner of Hoffner Farms, a certified organic dairy in Mount Ulla; Aaron Newton, local food system program coordinator for Cabarrus County; Dennis Testerman, manager of Cabarrus County Soil and Water; Sarah Moore, farmer and student environmental leader at Catawba; and facilitator John Wear, executive director of the Center for the Environment.
The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. To register, visit www.centerfortheenvironment.org