OLDS — The Olds College Alumni Centre hosted last week two showings of a film shot in and around the Olds area last year about how farming has changed, especially in the last three decades.
The film, called Farms of the Future: The Evolution of Agriculture, was shot by Tyler Duffy a filmmaker, actor and director based in Red Deer.
He talked to several Olds College instructors and researchers as well as producers within a 100-mile radius of Olds and Innisfail during the growing season last year.
In promotional material, Duffy says it’s aimed at the global market.
During an interview with the Albertan, Duffy said after the age of about nine, he grew up on a buffalo ranch.
He is fascinated by all the technological changes that have occurred in farming especially after about 1993, when the internet really began to have an impact.
“All the GPS and how far that advanced and then knowing how different that is from when I was a kid in the '80s," he said.
“I wanted to really dive into that and do an investigative research documentary to learn about those changes.
“It's completely changed the way farmers do things, making their processes way more efficient and be more environmentally-friendly.”
He submitted an application for funding to Telus and they green-lit it.
In fact, the topic of how technology has changed agriculture is so vast that Duffy said he had to focus strictly on grain farming for this film.
“When I started to do my research for the documentary, I realized if I don't pick one lane of the agriculture industry here, there's no way I'm gonna be able to do this successfully in like, an hour-and-a half movie,” he said.
He has ideas to do others focusing on, for example, cattle, chicken farming and hog farming.
“I think it's such a complex, interesting story. You would need to isolate those different methods to in order to cover them properly. Otherwise you would just be trying to do way too much,” he said.
A trailer for the film has also been created and can be viewed on YouTube.
