Soyalism (2018) explores how factory farming has become a giant global business concentrated in the hands of a few Western and Chinese companies.

Across the globe, people are eating more and more meat. Demand has increased sevenfold since 1960 with 70 billion animals currently being killed per year. That number is set to reach 120 billion by 2050.

To meet this demand, corporate giants have taken over farming, creating massive ‘factories’ for the housing and feeding of livestock and waste disposal.

Using buzz words like ‘vertical integraton’, Western and Chinese corporations now dominate supply chains and wield great power. At the same time, more and more land is being dedicated to growing the grains and soya needed to support the world’s burgeoning demand for meat.

In the process, factory farming has put thousands of small producers out of business and permanently transformed entire landscapes.

Factual America caught up with Soyalism’s director Enrico Parenti and producer Susana Trojano at the Global Health Film Festival. Their journey started with a question about how to feed the world’s fast-expanding population. They soon uncovered a tale that starts in America, winds through Brazil and China and finally takes them all the way to Mozambique.

We also talk about what it’s like being a European filmmaker working in the United States, and some of the difficulties Enrico and Susana encountered there. 

“It’s even hard to find where the investors inside a company come from.” – Enrico Parenti