When director Taggart Siegal’s quirky documentary, The Real Dirt on Farmer John, was released in 2005, it garnered a good deal of critical acclaim, racking up over thirty awards and honors at both domestic and international festivals (Angelic Organics). Using a combination of home videos and twenty-five years worth of footage shot by Siegal, the film chronicles the life of John Peterson, an eccentric Illinois farmer, and his struggle to make his family’s 350-acre farm successful in the wake of his father’s untimely death. Beginning in the late 1960s, Peterson embarked on a forty-year journey, experimenting with different modes of farming all the while attempting to negotiate a personal identity in the midst of familial loss, community persecution, and financial hardship.

Siegal’s primary project is to track the development of Angelic Organics, the Community Supported Agriculture farm founded by Peterson in the early 1990s, and highlight the benefits associated with organic, biodynamic produce—a task accomplished through the structure of the documentary, which is primarily chronological. The linear narrative is framed by parallel shot sequences of Peterson walking along the rich soil of his farm, providing introductory and closing remarks that shape viewers’ opinions about the story’s events; John Peterson informs the audience that he “almost ruined” his family’s farm before (as the moist, fertile soil in his hand indicates) he became successful. With this honest confession, viewers are set up from the start to trust John and, by extension, his version of events.

Between these frames, Siegal provides a detailed history of John’s life from childhood to present, highlighting his successes and struggles, his accomplishments and his failures. As the audience travels through John’s experimental college life, his takeover and subsequent loss of the family farm, and his on-and-off years in Mexico, viewers begin to recognize that John’s diverse background has provided him with the open mindset and exposure to various practices that would eventually enable him to conceptualize the farming approach needed to make Angelic Organics a success.

One such experience shows John returning from a yearlong sojourn in Mexico, where he attended to escape a failed experiment on his “run-down farm.” In Mexico, however, he witnesses a farmer in his field, connecting with the land and feels new inspiration to make his farm successful. When he returns to his farm, he begins to experiment with organic, biodynamic replacements for farming chemical products. Viewers see him on his knees, his arm elbow deep in a white bucket as he swirls natural products together to form a fertilization compound for his land. He notes that as a result of his experience in Mexico and his return to the family farm, “I began to see the farm as a living organism [and]…start[ed] to blend diverse elements into a whole…This [began] to heal the farm.” The viewer later sees that these products and this philosophy of farming—a “spiritual-ethical-ethological approach to agriculture” (BFGA)—ultimately became the foundation of Angelic Organics and that John’s diverse experiences were necessary for his success.

The viewer sees each of these experiences through Siegal’s own recordings, as well as through the filmmaker’s incorporation of family home videos (presumably never intended for mass public viewing). In doing so, Siegal not only accurately recounts Peterson’s travels and his development as a farmer; like the previously discussed narrative framing, the strategic incorporation of particular scenes and sequences also adds a layer of depth and honesty to the documentary that enhances the objective and credible feel of the narration.
It is significant to the overall effectiveness of Siegal’s documentary that the filmmaker does not limit the scope of his interviews merely to family members and workers of Angelic Organics; he also several members of John’s Illinois community—many of whom that historically have viewed the Peterson farm in an unfavorable light. In particular, the inclusion of former classmate and fellow farmer, John Edwards, helps viewers better understand John Peterson and the ultimate success of Angelic Organics.

Edwards, a former candidate for County Sherriff, serves as the documentary’s Vox Pop—the voice of the outside community. Initially, he disapproves of Peterson and his non-traditional lifestyle and farming methods. The viewer’s introduction to Edwards is through direct interview, when the he tells Siegal that Peterson’s “unusual” and “strange” practices were “starting to interfere with [his’ cattle,” which, we learn, raised his suspicions and caused him to spread gossip about Peterson around town.

The end of the film, however, shows Edwards apologizing to Peterson, saying that he’s “[Wanted to] make things right for a while.” He notes that he was wrong for thinking badly of Peterson, congratulates him on his success, and expresses interest in cultivating a friendship in the future. Siegal’s strategic use of Edwards illustrates that even those in the community who once thought badly of Peterson have been forced to recognize the success of John and Angelic Organics.

That being said, however, Siegal’s treatment also points to an apparent bias in this non-fiction documentary. To a certain extent, Edwards is villainized and his qualms about John and his practices are discredited without explanation. One particularly disturbing example of unexplained questions brought up by John Edwards is when the farmer notes, “Some deaths were occurring” in the community and John was, for some reason, suspected. The line is glossed over and is, in fact, used to make Edwards look foolish. The bias against Edwards is subtle, but effective in terms of both increasing John Peterson’s credibility and illustrating the success of Angelic Organics and biodynamic farming.

The viewers’ understanding of the overall success of John Peterson’s company, Angelic Organics, and their biodynamic farming practices points to an subtle yet fascinating undertone presented in the text: the importance diversity in cultivating a successful farm. John notes that his shift to biodynamic farming forced him to move from growing four crops to growing more than thirty. Each of these plants, he noted, “had their own rhythms and personalities.” John learned that incorporating a diverse array of plant species, animals, and insects into his farm was necessary for the overall success of Angelic Organics because it protected the farm from the invasion of insects and foreign predators.

To this point (and in terms of narrative structure) it is significant to note that, throughout the documentary, parallels are frequently drawn between the people on the farm and the plants they’re cultivating. Viewers see that, like his crops, John became successful when he surrounds himself with a diverse group of people who compliment one another. He comments that “all sorts of people came to [his] farm” and it became “a great harmony of…cultures,” comprised of people from all walks of life—such as artists, hippies, revolutionaries, Hispanics, African-Americans, women, refugees, etc.  As the film closes, the parallels constructed throughout the narrative indicate communities—like organic farms—thrive when diversity is introduced. In doing so, The Real Dirt on Farmer John extends beyond the traditional narrative of the farm documentary and challenges audiences to embrace diversity within their own communities.



Works Cited

The Real Dirt on Farmer John. Dir. Taggart Seigel. Perf. John Peterson. Gaiam Entertainment, 2005. DVD.