Know Farmers, Know Food: Exploring Spices Through Film

Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a legendary restaurant in upstate New York, has a motto: “Know thy Farmer.”

It’s a powerful phrase. To know your farmer is to recognize the people whose hard work and expertise keep us nourished – and to discover how their food is grown.

But at the grocery store, of all the farmers whose work features on every shelf, how many are visible?

Global agribusiness dehumanizes food. As a result, farmers around the world are unseen and undervalued, their environmental impacts – positive or negative – hidden from view. To orient the food system towards well-being, consumers must be reintroduced to farmers and their communities.

To that end, The Yogi Foundation and Yogi Tea embarked on a unique artistic journey called The Theory of Spice, a three-part film series exploring spice-producing regions around the world. In the cardamom-producing forests of Nimlajacoc, Guatemala, an artistic partner with local knowledge helped bring the story to life.

Grammy-award winning and Emmy-award nominated musician Gaby Moreno’s diverse career has included composing original music for film and television. Guatemalan by birth, she was excited and aligned with the film’s vision.

“And oh my God, just to see the dreams that these people have, right? They’re all just like you and me. They’re just people. And that, to me, has always been very important – to highlight the shared humanity between people.”

For Gaby, the film offered insight into a community in flux.

“You’re able to look through a window into these communities and learn about them. It really touched me to see their traditions, but also how they’re looking toward the future.”

The story the film uncovers has its share of tragedy, too.

“Nimlajacoc, like many other communities in Guatemala, have been hit with a lot of violence from civil war and seen a lot of displacement. That’s something that you see at the beginning of this film: the community, how they gather... They’re a very tight-knit community, keeping their traditions alive.”

Moreno contributed an original song to the films – a love letter to her home country that invites connection to a previously unseen community.

“The song is called Oro Verde, which means ‘green gold’ because that is what they call the cardamom.

The chorus says, ‘It’s green gold, our green gold, feeding joy and sadness in life and in death.’ I would love for people to know that Guatemala is an incredibly vibrant country, that we have dozens of indigenous languages, it’s multicultural, it’s multilingual. It’s a country that has a lot to offer with people who are incredibly sweet, hardworking, and honest.”

In the end, what happens when we get to know farmers? For Gaby, it’s all about recognizing shared humanity and building the respect such recognition creates – a journey echoed by the films themselves.

“In Guatemala, the filmmakers had to go through a lot of obstacles even to get to this community. And then the amount of love and respect that they showed for the community was incredible. I thought they were able to highlight their voices and bring forward their message: the message of being a community that has gone through a lot of difficult times – but is still thriving.”

These are the stories Yogi Tea and The Yogi Foundation are bringing to light. Watch The Theory of Spice on Documentary+ or theyogifoundation.com.