The mind-boggling scale of food production and consumption and its consequences on food sustainability for mankind was conveyed to a bewildered audience by renowned National Geographic photographer George Steinmetz through his talk ‘Feed the Planet: A Photographic Journey to the World’s Food’ at the ongoing 9th annual International Photography Festival, Xposure, at Aljada, Sharjah on Saturday.
In this talk, Steinmetz shared stunning visuals captured from the skies and the ground, offering an unparalleled perspective on the systems that feed our world. From the massive cattle and poultry farms in Brazil to the fish farms in China, the dairy and crop farms in India, the fishing boats in Mauritania, the sugarcane farms in Costa Rica, the camel dairy farms in the UAE to the cheese warehouses of Italy, he showed them all to give a sense of massive quantities that are required to feed humans. Chilling pictures of the commercial treatment of livestock as they are fed, made to reproduce or slaughtered were an eye opener for the audience.
With impactful imagery and knowledgeable insights, Steinmetz challenged attendees to reflect on the choices they make every day and their collective impact on the health of our planet. The free-range cattle in Australia that are shipped to Indonesia for slaughter, the goats shipped from Somaliland to Mecca during the Hajj season, the narrow strips of farmland in Poland, the subsidies given to cattle farmers in the Swiss Alps or the double-muscled Belgian Blue breed of beef cattle that give birth by Caesarean section, the master storyteller’s lens educated the audience about practices and traditions followed around the world.
The vast scale of agricultural production -- coffee beans in Ethiopia, millets in India, or sunflowers in Arizona, USA under controlled environments – as well as the deforestation of the Amazon for grazing came alive in pictures.
Steinmetz said access to production houses has been easier in middle-income countries than in the developed world where one of his earlier projects over a cattle farm in the US had landed him in jail following the owner’s complaint, which also made him realise that “people had something to hide” in the way they carried their business. He said relationship building and networking helped him gain access to animal farms in countries like China.
Steinmetz, whose current project is documenting climate change and the global food supply, primarily with professional drones, narrated his professional journey that kick started with photographing the Algerian Sahara on a motorized paraglider in the 1990s. The master storyteller noted that “drone photography has denigrated the game of aerial photography and anyone with a thousand bucks can now do it”.
Organised by the Sharjah Government Media Bureau (SGMB), Xposure 2025 runs until February 26. To learn more about the global celebration platform for visual storytelling, visit https://xposure.net/.